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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No..._i_\_*_. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 




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(After a drawing by Archer.) 



" In addition to the general impression of his diminutiveness and 
fragility, one was struck with the peculiar beauty of his head and 
forehead, rising disproportionately high over his small wrinkly 
visage and gentle deep-set eyes." 

Uavid Masson. 



DE QUINCEY'S 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 



Edited 
With Introduction and Notes 



WILLIAM EDWARD 'SIMONDS, Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND 
LITERATURE IN KNOX COLLEGE 



^ 

/ . 



; BOSTON, U^S.A. 
GINN .^' COMrAW. i't^ni.lSHERS 

1898 



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• 16876 

Coi'V RIGHT, 1898, BY 

WILLIAM EDWARD SIMONDS 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 




WOCePtESRECIIVEB. 
1893. 



PREFACE 



In editing an English classic for use in the secondary 
schools, there is always opportunity for the expression of 
personal convictions and personal taste; nevertheless, where 
one has predecessors in the task of preparing such a text, it 
is difficult always, occasionally impossible, to avoid treading 
on their heels. The present editor, therefore, hastens to 
acknowledge his indebtedness to the various school editions 
of the Revolt of the Tartars^ already in existence. The notes 
by Masson are so authoritative and so essential that their 
quotation needs no comment. De Quincey's footnotes are 
retained in their original form and appear embodied in the 
text. The other annotations suggest the method which the 
editor would follow in class-room work upon this essay. 

The student's attention is called frequently to ih^form of 
expression; the discriminating use of epithets, the employ- 
ment of foreign phrases, the allusions to Milton and the 
Bible, the structure of paragraphs, the treatment of incident, 
the development of feeling, the impressiveness of a present 
personality; all this, however, is with the purpose, not of 
mechanic exercise, nor merely to illustrate " rhetoric," but 
to illuminate De Quincey. It is with this intention, presum- 
ably, that the text is prescribed. There is little attractive- 
ness, after all, in the idea of a style so colorless and so 
impersonal that the individuality of its victim is lost in its 
own perfection; this vs^as certainly not the Opium- Eater's mind 
concerning literary form, nor does it appear to have been the 



IV PREFACE. 

aim of any of our masters. Indeed, it maybe well in passing 
to point out to pupils how fatal to success in writing is the 
attempt to imitate the style of any man, De Quincey included; 
it is always in order to emphasize the naturalness and spon- 
taneity of the "grand style" wherever it is found. The 
teacher should not inculcate a blind admiration of all that 
De Quincey has said or done ; there is opportunity, even in 
this brief essay, to exercise the pupil in applying the common- 
place tests of criticism, although it should be seen to as well 
that a true appreciation is awakened for the real excellences 
of this little masterpiece. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction : 

CRITICAL APPRECIATION vii 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH X 

AUTHORITIES AND REFERENCES xxii 

The Revolt of the Tartars i 

Appended Notes by Masson (^-^ 

notes, explanatory and critical .... 74 



INTRODUCTION 



Thomas De Quincey is one of the eccentric figures in 
English literature. Popularly he is known as the English 
Opium-Eater and as the subject of numerous anecdotes 
which emphasize the oddities of his temperament and the 
unconventionality of his habits. That this man of distin- 
guished genius was the victim — pitifully the victim — of 
opium is the lamentable fact; that he was morbidly shy and 
shunned intercourse with all except a few intimate, congenial 
friends; that he was comically indifferent to the fashion of 
his dress; that he was the most unpractical and childlike of 
men ; that he was often betrayed, because of these peculiari- 
ties, into many ridiculous embarrassments, such as are 
described by Mr. Findlay, Mr. Hogg, and Mr. Burton, — of 
all this there can be no doubt; but these idiosyncrasies are, 
after all, of minor importance, the accidents, not the essen- 
tials in the life and personality of this remarkable man. The 
points that should attract our notice, the qualities that really 
give distinction to De Quincey, are the broad sweep of his 
knowledge, almost unlimited in its scope and singularly accu- 
rate in its details, a facility of phrasing and a word supply 
that transformed the mere power of discriminating expression 
into a fine art, and a style that, while it lapsed occasionally 
from the standard of its own excellence, was generally self- 
corrective and frequently forsook the levels of commonplace 
excellence for the highest reaches of impassioned prose. 
Xor is this all. His pages do not lack in humor — humor of 
the truest and most delicate type; and if De Quincey is at 



Vlll INTR on UC TION. 

times impelled beyond the bounds of taste, even these excur- 
sions demonstrate his power, at least in handling the gro- 
tesque. His sympathies, however, are always genuine, and 
often are profound. The pages of his autobiographic essays 
reveal the strength of his affections, while in the interpreta- 
tion of such a character as that of Joan of Arc, or in allusions 
like those to the pariahs, — defenceless outcasts from society, 
by whose wretched lot his heart was often wrung, — he writes 
in truest pathos. 

Now sympathy is own child of the imagination, whether 
expressed in the language of laughter or in the vernacular of 
tears; and the most distinctive quality in the mental make-up 
of De Quincey was, after all, this dominant imagination which 
was characteristic of the man from childhood to old age. 
The Opium- Eater once defined the great scholar as '' not one 
who depends simply on an infinite memory, but also on an 
infinite and electrical power of combination, bringing together 
from the four winds, like the angel of the resurrection, what 
else were dust from dead men's bones, into the unity of 
breathing life." Such was De Quincey himself. He was a 
scholar born, gifted with a mind apt for the subtleties of 
metaphysics, a memory well-nigh inexhaustible in the 
recovery of facts; in one respect, at least, he was a great 
scholar, for his mind was dominated by an imagination as 
vigorous as that which created Macaulay's England, almost 
as sensitive to dramatic effect as that which painted Carlyle's 
Fre7ich Revolution. Therefore when he wrote narrative, his- 
torical narrative, or reminiscence, he lived in the experiences 
he pictured, as great historians do ; perhaps living over 
again the scenes of the past, or for the first time making 
real the details of occurrences with which he was only 
recently familiar. 

The Revolt of the Tartars is a good illustration of his 
power. Attracted by the chance reading of an obscure 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

French missionary and traveller to the dramatic possibilities 
of an episode in Russian history, De Quincey built from the 
bare notes thus discovered, supplemented by others drawn 
from a matter-of-fact German archaeologist, a narrative which 
for vividness of detail and truthfulness of local color belongs 
among the best of those classics in which fancy helps to 
illuminate fact, and where the imagination is invoked to 
recreate what one feels intuitively must have been real. 

The Revolt of the Tartars^ while not exhibiting the highest 
achievement of the author's power, nevertheless belongs in 
the group of writings wherein his peculiar excellences are 
fairly manifested. The obvious quality of its realism has 
been pointed out already; the masterly use of the prin- 
ciples of suspense and stimulated interest will hardly pass 
unnoticed. A negative excellence is the absence of that 
discursiveness in composition, that tendency to digress into 
superfluous comment, which is this author's one prevailing 
fault. De Quincey was gifted with a fine appreciation of 
harmonious sound, and in those passages where his spirit 
soars highest not the least of their beauties is found in the 
melodiousness of their tone and the rhythmic sweetness of 
their motion. 

It is as a master of rhetoric that De Quincey is distin- 
guished among writers. Some hints of his ability are seen 
in the opening and closing passages of this essay, but to 
find him at his best one must turn to the Cofifessmis and to 
the other papers which describe his life, particularly those 
which recount his marvellous dreams. In these papers we 
find the passages where De Quincey's passion rises to the 
heights which few other writers have ever reached in prose, 
a loftiness and grandeur which is technically denominated 
as " sublime." In his Essay on Style, published in Black- 
woocVs, 1840, he deprecates the usual indifference to form, on 
the part of English writers, " the tendency of the national 



X INTR on UC TION. 

mind to value the matter of a book not only as paramount 
to the manner, but even as distinct from it and as capable 
of a separate insulation." As one of the great masters of 
prose style in this century, De Quincey has so served the 
interests of art in this regard, that in his own case the 
charge is sometimes reversed : his own works are read 
rather to observe his manner than to absorb his thought. 
Yet when this is said, it is not to imply that the material is 
unworthy or the ideas unsound ; on the contrary, his senti- 
ment is true and his ideas are wholesome ; but many of the 
topics treated lie outside the deeper interests of ordinary 
life, and fail to appeal to us so practically as do the writings 
of some lesser men. Of the " one hundred and fifty maga- 
zine articles " which comprise his works, there are many that 
will not claim the general interest, yet his writings as a 
whole will always be recognized by students of rhetoric as 
containing excellences which place their author among the 
English classics. Nor can De Quincey be accused of sub- 
ordinating matter to manner ; in spite of his taste for the 
theatrical and a tendency to extravagance, his expression is 
in keeping with his thought, and the material of those pas- 
sages which contain his most splendid flights is appropriate 
to the treatment it receives. One effective reason, certainly, 
why we take pleasure in the mere style of De Quincey's 
work is because that work is so thoroughly inspired with the 
Opium-Eater's own genial personality, because it so unmis- 
takably suggests that inevitable " smack of individuality " 
which gives to the productions of all great authors their 
truest distinction if not their greatest worth. 

Thomas De Quincey was born in Manchester, August 15, 
1785. His father was a well-to-do merchant of literary taste, 
but of him the children of the household scarcely knew ; he 
was an invalid, a prey to consumption, and during their 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

childhood made his residence mostly in the milder climate 
of Lisbon or the West Indies. Thomas was seven years old 
when his father was brought home to die, and the lad, though 
sensitively impressed by the event, felt little of the signifi- 
cance of relationship between them. Mrs. De Quincey was 
a somewhat stately lady, rather strict in discipline and rigid 
in her views. There does not seem to have been the most 
complete sympathy between mother and son, yet De Quincey 
was always reverent in his attitude, and certainly entertained 
a genuine respect for her intelligence and character. There 
were eight children in the home, four sons and four 
daughters ; Thomas was the fifth in age, and his relations 
to the other members of this little community are set forth 
most interestingly in the opening chapters of his Autobio- 
graphic Sketches. 

De Quincey's child life was spent in the country ; first at 
a pretty rustic dwelling known as " The Farm," and after 
1792 at a larger country house near Manchester, built by 
his father, and given by his mother the pleasantly suggestive 
name of " Greenhay," hay meaning hedge, or hedgerow. 
The early boyhood of Thomas De Quincey is of more than 
ordinary interest, because of the clear light it throws upon 
the peculiar temperament and endowments of the man. 
Moreover, we have the best of authority in our study of this 
period, namely, the author himself, who in the Sketches already 
mentioned, and in his most noted work, The Confessions of 
ail EiigUsh Opium-Eater., has told the story of these early 
years in considerable detail and with apparent sincerity. 
De Quincey was not a sturdy boy. Shy and dreamy, exqui- 
sitely sensitive to impressions of melancholy and mystery, 
he was endowed with an imagination abnormally active 
even for .a child. It is customary to give prominence to 
De Quincey's pernicious habit of opium-eating, in attempt- 
ing to explain the grotesque fancies and weird flights of his 



Xll INTR OD UC TION. 

marvellous mind in later years ; yet it is only fair to empha- 
size the fact that the later achievements of that strange 
creative faculty were clearly foreshadowed in youth. For 
example, the earliest incident in his life that he could after- 
wards recall, he describes as " a remarkable dream of terrific 
grandeur about a favorite nurse, which is interesting to 
myself for this reason — that it demonstrates my dreaming 
tendencies to have been constitutional, and not dependent 
upon laudanum."^ Again he tells us how, when six years 
old, upon the death of a favorite sister three years older, he 
stole unobserved upstairs to the death chamber ; unlocking 
the door and entering silently, he stood for a moment gazing 
through the open window toward the bright sunlight of a 
cloudless day, then turned to behold the angel face upon the 
pillow. Awed in the presence of death, the meaning of 
which he began vaguely to understand, he stood listening 
to a "solemn wind" that began to blow — "the saddest 
that ear ever heard." What followed should appear in 
De Quincey's own words : " A vault seemed to open in the 
zenith of the far blue sky, a shaft which ran up forever. I, 
in spirit, rose as if on billows that also ran up the shaft for- 
ever ; and the billows seemed to pursue the throne of God ; 
but that also ran on before us and fled away continually. 
The flight and the pursuit seemed to go on forever and ever. 
Frost gathering frost, some sarsar wind of death, seemed to 
repel me ; some mighty relation between God and death 
dimly struggled to evolve itself from the dreadful antagonism 
between them ; shadowy meanings even yet continued to 
exercise and torment, in dreams, the deciphering oracle 
within me. I slept — for how long I cannot say : slowly I 
recovered my self-possession ; and, when I woke, found my- 
self standing as before, close to my sister's bed."^ Some- 

1 Autobiographic Sketches, Chap. I. 

2 Ibid. 



INTR OD UC TION. xiu 

what similar in effect were the fancies that came to this 
dreamy boy on Sunday mornings during service in the fine 
old English church. Through the wide central field of 
uncolored glass, set in a rich framework of gorgeous color, 
— for the side panes of the great windows were pictured 
with the stories of saints and martyrs, — the lad saw "white 
fleecy clouds sailing over the azure depths of the sky." 
Straightway the picture changed in his imagination, and 
visions of young children, lying on white beds of sickness 
and of death, rose before his eyes, ascending slowly and 
softly into heaven, God's arms descending from the heavens 
that He might the sooner take them to Himself and grant 
release. Such are not infrequently the dreams of children. 
De Quincey's experience is not unique ; but with him imagi- 
nation, the imagination of childhood, remained unimpaired 
through life. It was not wholly opium that made him the 
great dreamer of our literature, any more than it was the 
effect of a drug that brought from his dying lips the cry of 
" Sister, sister, sister ! " — an echo from this sacred chamber 
of death, where he had stood awed and entranced nearly 
seventy years before. 

Not all of De Quincey's boyhood, however, was passed 
under influences so serious and mystical as these. He was 
early compelled to undergo what he is pleased to call his 
"introduction to the world of strife." His brother William, 
five years the senior of Thomas, appears to have been 
endowed with an imagination as remarkable as his own. 
" His genius for mischief," says Thomas, " amounted to 
inspiration." Very amusing are the chronicles of the little 
autocracy thus despotized by William. The assumption of 
the young tyrant was magnificent. Along with the preroga- 
tives and privileges of seniority, he took upon himself as well 
certain responsibihties more galling to his half-dozen uneasy 
subordinates, doubtless, than the undisputed hereditary rights 



XIV INTR on UC TION. 

of age. William constituted himself the educational guide 
of the nursery, proclaiming theories, delivering lectures, 
performing experiments, asserting opinions upon subjects 
diverse and erudite. Indeed, a vigorous spirit was housed 
in William's body, and but for his early death, this lad also 
might have brought lustre to the family name. 

A real introduction to the world of strife came with the 
development of a lively feud between the two brothers on 
the one side, and on the other a crowd of young belligerents 
employed in a cotton factory on the road between Greenhay 
and Manchester, where the boys now attended school. 
Active hostilities occurred daily when the two " aristocrats " 
passed the factory on their way home at the hour when 
its inmates emerged from their labor. The dread of this 
encounter hung like a cloud over Thomas, yet he followed 
William loyally, and served with all the spirit of a cadet of 
the house. Imagination played an important part in this 
campaign, and it is for that reason primarily that to this and 
the other incidents of De Quincey's childhood prominence 
is here given ; in no better way can we come to an under- 
standing of the real nature of this singular man. 

In 1796 the home at Greenhay was broken up. The irre- 
pressible William was sent to London to study art; Mrs. 
De Quincey removed to Bath, and Thomas was placed in 
the grammar school of that town ; a younger brother, Richard, 
in all respects a pleasing contrast to William, was a sympa- 
thetic comrade and schoolmate. For two years De Quincey 
remained in this school, achieving a great reputation in the 
study of Latin, and living a congenial, comfortable life. This 
was followed by a year in a private school at Winkfield, 
which was terminated by an invitation to travel in Ireland 
with young Lord Westport, a lad of De Quincey's own age, 
an intimacy having sprung up between them a year earlier 
at Bath. It was in 1800 that the trip was made, and the 



INTR OD UC TION. x v 

period of the visit extended over four or five months. After 
this long recess De Quincey was placed in the grammar 
school at Manchester, his guardians expecting that a three 
years' course in this school would bring him a scholarship at 
Oxford. However, the new environment proved wholly 
uncongenial, and the sensitive boy who, in spite of his 
shyness and his slender frame, possessed grit in abundance, 
and who was through life more or less a law to himself, made 
up his mind to run away. His flight was significant. Early 
on a July morning he slipped quietly off — in one pocket a 
copy of an English poet, a volume of Euripides in the other. 
His first move was toward Chester, the seventeen-year-old 
runaway deeming it proper that he should report at once to 
his mother, who was now living in that town. So he trudged 
overland forty miles and faced his astonished and indignant 
parent. At the suggestion of a kind-hearted uncle, just home 
from India, Thomas was let off easily; indeed, he was given 
an allowance of a guinea a week, with permission to go on 
a tramp through North Wales, a proposition which he hailed 
with delight. The next three months were spent in a rather 
pleasant ramble, although the weekly allowance was scarcely 
sufficient to supply all the comforts desired. The trip ended 
strangely. Some sudden fancy seizing him, the boy broke 
off all connection with his friends and went to London. 
Unknown, unprovided for, he buried himself in the vast life 
of the metropolis. He lived a precarious existence for 
several months, suffering from exposure, reduced to the 
verge of starvation, his whereabouts a mystery to his friends. 
The cloud of this experience hung darkly over his spirit, 
even in later manhood; perceptions of a true world of strife 
were vivid; impressions of these wretched months formed 
the material of his most sombre dreams. 

Rescued at last, pi evidentially, De Quincey spent the next 
period of his life, covering the years 1803-7, in residence 



XVI INTR OD UC TION. 

at Oxford. His career as a student at the university is 
obscure. He was a member of Worcester College, was 
known as a quiet, studious man, and lived an isolated if not 
a solitary life. With a German student, who taught him 
Hebrew, De Quincey seems to have had some intimacy, but 
his circle of acquaintance was small, and no contemporary 
has thrown much light on his stay. In 1807 he disappeared 
from Oxford, having taken the written tests for his degree, but 
failing to present himself for the necessary oral examination. 

The year of his departure from Oxford brought to De 
Quincey a long-coveted pleasure — acquaintance with two 
famous contemporaries whom he greatly admired, Coleridge 
and Wordsworth. Characteristic of De Quincey in many 
ways was his gift, anonymously made, of ^300 to his hero, 
Coleridge. This was in 1807, when De Quincey was twenty- 
two, and was master of his inheritance. The acquaintance 
ripened into intimacy, and in 1809 the young man, himself 
gifted with talents which were to make him equally famous 
with these, took up his residence at Grasmere, in the Lake 
country, occupying for many years the cottage which Words- 
worth had given up on his removal to ampler quarters at 
Rydal Mount. Here he spent much of his time in the 
society of the men who were then grouped in distinguished 
neighborhood ; besides Wordsworth and Coleridge, the poet 
Southey was accessible, and a frequent visitor was John 
Wilson, later widely known as the " Christopher North " of 
Blackwood^ s Magazme. Nor was De Quincey idle ; his habits 
of study were confirmed; indeed, he was already a philoso- 
pher at twenty-four. These were years of hard reading and 
industrious thought, wherein he accumulated much of that 
metaphysical wisdom which was afterward to win admiring 
recognition. 

In 18 16 De Quincey married Margaret Simpson, a farmer's 
daughter living near. There is a pretty scene painted by 



INTR OD UC TION. xvii 

the author himself/ in which he gives us a glimpse of his 
domestic life at this time. Therein he pictures the cottage, 
standing in a valley, eighteen miles from any town; no spa- 
cious valley, but about two miles long by three-quarters of a 
mile in average width. The mountains are real mountains, 
between 3000 and 4000 feet high, and the cottage a real 
cottage, white, embowered with flowering shrubs, so chosen 
as to unfold a succession of flowers upon the walls, and 
clustering around the windows, through all the months of 
spring, summer, and autumn, beginning, in fact, with May 
roses and ending with jasmine. It is in the winter season, 
however, that De Quincey paints his picture, and so he 
describes a room, seventeen feet by twelve, and not more 
than seven and one-half feet high. This is the drawing-room, 
although it might more justly be termed the library, for it 
happens that books are the one form of property in which 
the owner is wealthy. Of these he has about 5000, collected 
gradually since his eighteenth year. The room is, therefore, 
populous with books. There is a good fire on the hearth. 
The furniture is plain and modest, befitting the unpretending 
cottage of a scholar. Near the fire stands a tea table ; there 
are only two cups and saucers on the tray. It is an "eternal" 
teapot that the artist would like us to imagine, for he usually 
drinks tea from eight o'clock at night to four in the morning. 
There is, of course, a companion at the tea table, and very 
lovingly does the. husband suggest the pleasant personality 
of his young wife. One other important feature is included 
in the scene ; upon the table there rests also a decanter, in 
which sparkles the ruby-colored laudanum. 

De Quincey's experience with opium had begun while he 

was a student at the university, in 1804. It was first taken 

to obtain relief from neuralgia, and his use of the drug did 

not at once become habitual. During the period of residence 

1 Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Part II. 



XVlli INTRODUCTION'. 

at Grasmere, however, De Quincey became confirmed in the 
habit, and so thoroughly was he its victim that for a season 
his intellectual powers were well-nigh paralyzed ; his mind 
sank under such a cloud of depression and gloom that his 
condition was pitiful in the extreme. Just before his mar- 
riage, in 1816, De Quincey, by a vigorous effort, partially 
regained his self-control and succeeded in materially reducing 
his daily allowance of the drug; but in the following year he 
fell more deeply than ever under its baneful power, until in 
18 18-19 ^is consumption of opium was something almost 
incredible. Thus he became truly enough the great English 
Opium-Eater, whose Co?ifessio?is were later to fill a unique 
place in English literature. It was finally the absolute need 
of bettering his financial condition that compelled De Quincey 
to shake off the shackles of his vice ; this he practically 
accomplished, although perhaps he was never entirely free 
from the habit. The event is coincident with the beginning 
of his career as a public writer. In 1820 he became a man 
of letters. 

As a professional writer it is to be noted that De Quincey 
was throughout a contributor to the periodicals. With one 
or two exceptions all his works found their way to the public 
through the pages of the magazines, and he was associated 
as contributor with most of those that were prominent in his 
time. From 182 1 to 1825 we find him residing for the most 
part in London, and here his public career began. It was 
De Quincey's most distinctive work which first appeared. 
The London Magazine, in its issue for September, 182 1, con- 
tained the first paper of the Confessiojis of an English Opium- 
Eater. The novelty of the subject was sufficient to obtain 
for the new writer an interested hearing, and there was much 
discussion as to whether his apparent frankness was genuine 
or assumed. All united in applause of the masterly style 
which distinguished the essay, also of the profundity and 



INTR OD UC TION. XIX 

value of the interesting material it contained. A second 
part was included in the magazine for October. Other 
articles by the Opium-Eater followed, in which the wide 
scholarship of the author was abundantly shown, although 
the topics were of less general interest. 

In 1826 De Quincey became an occasional contributor to 
Blackwood^s Magazine^ and this connection drew him to 
Edinburgh, where he remained, either in the city itself or in 
its vicinity, for the rest of his life. The grotesquely humor- 
ous Essay on Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts 
appeared in Blackwood^ s in 1827. In 1832 he published a 
series of articles on Roman History, entitled The Ccesars. 
It was in July, 1837, that the Revolt of the Tartars appeared; 
in 1840 his critical paper upon The Essejies. Meanwhile 
De Quincey had begun contributions to Taifs Magazine, 
another Edinburgh publication, and it was in that periodical 
that the Sketches of Life and Manners from the Autobiography 
of an English Opiu7n-Eater began to appear in 1834, run- 
ning on through several years. These sketches include the 
chapters on Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, and Southey 
as well as those Autobiographic Sketches which form such a 
charming and illuminating portion of his complete works. 

The family life was sadly broken in 1837 by the death of 
De Quincey's wife. He who was now left as guardian of 
the little household of six children, was himself so helpless 
in all practical matters that it seemed as though he were in 
their childish care rather than protector of them. Scores of 
anecdotes are related of his odd and unpractical behavior. 
One of his curious habits had been the multiplication of 
lodgings ; as books and manuscripts accumulated about him 
so that there remained room for no more, he would turn the 
key upon his possessions and migrate elsewhere to repeat 
the performance later on. It is known that as many as four 
separate rents were at one and the same time being paid by 



XX INTR OD UC TION. 

this odd, shy little man, rather than allow the disturbance or 
contraction of his domain. Sometimes an anxious journey 
in search of a manuscript had to be made by author and 
publisher in conjunction before the missing paper could be 
located. The home life of this eccentric yet lovable man 
of genius seems to have been always affectionate and tender 
in spite even of his bondage to opium ; it was especially- 
beautiful and childlike in his latest years. His eldest 
daughter, Margaret, assumed quietly the place of headship, 
and with a discretion equal to her devotion she watched 
over her father's welfare. With reference to De Quincey's 
circumstances at this time, his biographer, Mr. Masson, 
says : " Very soon, if left to himself, he would have taken 
possession of every room in the house, one after another, 
and ' snowed up ' each with his papers ; but, that having 
been gently prevented, he had one room to work in all day 
and all night to his heart's content. The evenings, or the 
intervals between his daily working time and his nightly 
working time, or stroll, he generally spent in the drawing- 
room with his daughters, either alone or in company with 
any friends that chanced to be with him. At such times, 
we are told, he was unusually charming. ' The newspaper 
was brought out, and he, telling in his own delightful way, 
rather than reading, the news, would, on questions from this 
one or that one of the party, often including young friends 
of his children, neighbors, or visitors from distant places, 
illuminate the subject with such a wealth of memories, of 
old stories of past or present experiences, of humor, of 
suggestion, even of prophecy, as by its very wealth makes 
it impossible to give any taste of it.' The description is by 
one of his daughters ; and she adds a touch which is inimi- 
table in its fidelity and tenderness. * He was not,' she says, 
* a reassuring man for nervous people to live with, as those 
nights were exceptional on which he did not set something 



INTR OD UC TION. xxi 

on fire, the commonest incident being for some one to look 
up from book or work, to say casually, Papa^ your hair is on 
fire; of which a calm Is it, my love 1 and a hand rubbing 
out the blaze was all the notice taken.' " ^ 

Of his personal appearance Professor Minto says : 
" He was a slender little man, with small, clearly chiselled 
features, a large head, and a remarkably high, square fore- 
head. There was a peculiarly high and regular arch in the 
wrinkles of his brow, which was also slightly contracted. 
The lines of his countenance fell naturally into an expres- 
sion of mild suffering, of endurance sweetened by benevo- 
lence, or, according to the fancy of the interpreter, of gentle, 
melancholy sweetness. All that met him seem to have been 
struck with the measured, silvery, yet somewhat hollow and 
unearthly tones of his voice, the more impressive that the 
flow of his talk was unhesitating and unbroken." 

The literary labors were continuous. In 1845 the beauti- 
ful Suspiria de Profundis (Sighs from the Depths) appeared 
in Blackwood^ s ; The English Mail Coach and The Vision of 
Sudden Death, in 1849. Among other papers contributed 
to Taifs Magazine, the Joart of Arc appeared in 1847. 
During the last ten years of his life, De Quincey was 
occupied chiefly in preparing for the publishers a complete 
edition of his works. Ticknor & Fields, of Boston, the 
most distinguished of our American publishing firms, had 
put forth, 1851-55, the first edition of De Quincey 's col- 
lected writings, in twenty volumes. The first British edition 
was undertaken by Mr. James Hogg, of Edinburgh, in 1853, 
with the co-operation of the author, and under his direction ; 
the final volume of this edition was not issued until the year 
following De Quincey's death. 

In the autumn of 1859 the frail physique of the now 
1 De Quincey {English Men of Letters), David Masson, p. no. 



xxu INTRODUCTION. 

famous Opium-Eater grew gradually feeble, although suffer- 
ing from no definite disease. It became evident that his life 
was drawing to its end. On December 8, his two daughters 
standing by his side, he fell into a doze. His mind had 
been wandering amid the scenes of his childhood, and his 
last utterance was the cry, " Sister, sister, sister ! " as if in 
recognition of one awaiting him, one who had been often in 
his dreams, the beloved Elizabeth, whose death had made 
so profound and lasting an impression on his imagination 
as a child. 

The authoritative edition of De Quincey's Works is that 
edited by David Masson and pubhshed in fourteen volumes 
by Adam and Charles Black (Edinburgh). For American 
students the Riverside Edition^ in twelve volumes (Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co., Boston), will be found convenient. The most 
satisfactory Life of De Quincey is the one by Masson in the 
English Men of Letters series. Of a more anecdotal type 
are the Life of De Qnincey, by H. A. Page, whose real 
name is Alexander H. Japp (2 vols.. New York, 1877), and 
De Quincey Memorials (New York, 1891), by the same 
author. Very interesting is the brief volume, Recollections 
of Thomas De Quincey, by John R. Findlay (Edinburgh, 
1886), who also contributes the paper on De Quincey to the 
EncyclopcEdia Britantiica. De Quincey and his Friends, by 
James Hogg .(London, 1895), is another volume of recollec- 
tions, souvenirs, and anecdotes, which help to make real 
their subject's personality. Besides the editor, other writers 
contribute to this volume : Richard Woodhouse, John R. 
Findlay, and John Hill Burton, who has given under the 
name " Papaverius," a picturesque description of the 
Opium-Eater. The student should always remember that 
De Quincey's own chapters in the Autobiographic Sketches, 
and the Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, which are 



INTK on UC TION. xxill 

among the most charming and important of his writings, are 
also the most authoritative and most valuable sources of our 
information concerning him. In reading about De Quincey, 
do not fail to read De Quincey himself. 

The best criticism of the Opium-Eater's work is found in 
William Minto's Ma7iiial of English Prose Lite?'atiire (Ginn 
& Co.). A shorter essay is contained in Saintsbury's 
History of Nifieteenth Cejitury Literature. A very valuable 
list of all De Quincey's writings, in chronological order, is 
given by Fred N. Scott, in his edition of De Quincey's 
essays on Style^ Rhetoric^ and Language (AUyn & Bacon). 
Numerous magazine articles may be found by referring to 
Poole's Index. 



HOW TO READ DE QUINCEY. 



" De Quincey's sixteen volumes of magazine articles 
are full of brain from beginning to end. At the rate of 
about half a volume a day, they would serve for a month's 
reading, and a month continuously might be worse ex- 
pended. There are few^ courses of reading from which a 
young man of good natural intelligence would come away 
more instructed, charmed, and stimulated, or, to express 
the matter as definitely as possible, with his mind more 
sti-etched. Good natural intelligence, a certain fineness of 
fibre, and some amount of scholarly education, have to 
be presupposed, indeed, in all readers of De Quincey. 
But, even for the fittest readers, a month's complete and 
continuous course of De Quincey would be too much. 
Better have him on the shelf, and take down a volume 
at intervals for one or two of the articles to which there 
may be an immediate attraction. An evening with De 
Quincey in this manner will always be profitable." 

DAVID MASSON, Life of De Qjihicey, Chap. XI. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS; 

OR, FLIGHT OF THE KALMUCK KHAN AND HIS PEOPLE 

FROM THE RUSSIAN TERRITORIES TO THE 

FRONTIERS OF CHINA. 



There is no great event in modern history, or, perhaps 
it may be said more broadly, none in all history, from its 
earliest records, less generally known, or more striking to 
the imagination, than the flight eastwards of a principal 
Tartar nation across the boundless steppes of Asia in the 5 
latter half of the last century. The tei-minus a quo of this 
flight and the terminus ad quein are equally magnificent 
— the mightiest of Christian thrones being the one, the 
mightiest of pagan the other ; and the grandeur of these 
two terminal objects is harmoniously supported by the 10 
romantic circumstances of the flight. In the abruptness 
of its commencement and the fierce velocity of its execu- 
tion we read an expression of the wild, barbaric character 
of the agents. In the unity of purpose connecting this 
myriad of wills, and in the blind but unerring aim at a 15 
mark so remote, there is something which recalls to the 
mind those almighty instincts that propel the migrations of 
the swallow and the leeming or the life-withering marches 
of the locust. Then, again, in the gloomy vengeance of 
Russia and her vast artillery, which hung upon the rear 20 
and the skirts of the fugitive vassals, we are reminded of 
Miltonic images — such, for instance, as that of the soli- 
tary hand pursuing through desert spaces and through 



2 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

ancient chaos a rebellious host, and overtaking with vol- 
leying thunders those who believed themselves already 
within the security of darkness and of distance. 

I shall have occasion, farther on, to compare this event 
5 with other great national catastrophes as to the magnitude 
of the suffering. But it may also challenge a comparison 
with similar events under another relation, — viz. as to its 
dramatic capabilities. Few cases, perhaps, in romance 
or history, can sustain a close collation with this as to the 

lo co77tplexity of its separate interests. The great outline of 
the enterprise, taken in connection with the operative 
motives, hidden or avowed, and the religious sanctions 
under which it was pursued, give to the case a triple 
character: ist, That of a conspiracy, with as close a unity 

15 in the incidents, and as much of a personal interest in 
the moving characters, with fine dramatic contrasts, as 
belongs to "Venice Preserved" or to the " Fiesco" of 
Schiller. 2dly, That of a great military expedition offer- 
ing the same romantic features of vast distances to be 

20 traversed, vast reverses to be sustained, untried routes, 
enemies obscurely ascertained, and hardships too vaguely 
prefigured, which mark the Egyptian expedition of Cam- 
byses — the anabasis of the younger Cyrus, and the 
subsequent retreat of the ten thousand, the Parthian 

25 expeditions of the Romans, especially those of Crassus 
and Julian — or (as more disastrous than any of them, 
and, in point of space, as well as in amount of forces, 
more extensive) the Russian anabasis and katabasis of 
Napoleon. 3dly, That of a religious Exodus, authorized 

30 by an oracle venerated throughout many nations of Asia, 
— an Exodus, therefore, in so far resembling the great 
Scriptural Exodus of the Israelites, under Moses and 
Joshua, as well as in the very peculiar distinction of carry- 
ing along with them their entire families, women, children, 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 3 

slaves, their herd of cattle and of sheep, their horses and 
their camels. 

This triple character of the enterprise naturally invests 
it with a more comprehensive interest ; but the dramatic 
interest which we ascribed to it, or its fitness for a stage 5 
representation, depends partly upon the marked variety 
and the strength of the personal agencies concerned, and 
partly upon the succession of scenical situations. Even 
the steppes, the camels, the tents, the snowy and the sandy 
deserts are not beyond the scale of our modern represent- 10 
ative powers, as often called into action in the theatres 
both of Paris and London ; and the series of situations 
unfolded, — beginning with the general conflagration on 
the Wolga — passing thence to the disastrous scenes of 
the flight (as it literally was in its commencement) — 15 
to the Tartar siege of the Russian fortress Koulagina — 
the bloody engagement with the Cossacks in the mountain 
passes at Ouchim — the surprisal by the Bashkirs and 
the advanced posts of the Russian army at Torgau — the 
private conspiracy at this point against the Khan — the 20 
long succession of running fights — the parting massacres 
at the Lake of Tengis under the eyes of the Chinese — 
and, finally, the tragical retribution to Zebek-Dorchi at 
the hunting lodge of the Chinese Emperor; — all these 
situations communicate a scenical animation to the wild 25 
romance, if treated dramatically; whilst a higher and a 
philosophic interest belongs to it as a case of authentic 
history, commemoratihg a great revolution, for good and 
for evil, in the fortunes of a whole people — a people semi- 
barbarous, but simple-hearted, and of ancient descent. 30 

On the 2istof January, 1761, the young Prince Oubacha 
assumed the sceptre of the Kalmucks upon the death 
of his father. Some part of the power attached to this 



4 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

dignity he had already wielded since his fourteenth year, 
in quality of Vice-Khan, by the express appointment and 
with the avowed support of the Russian Government. 
He was now about eighteen years of age, amiable in his 
5 personal character, and not without titles to respect in his 
public character as a sovereign prince. In times more 
peaceable, and amongst a people more entirely civilized 
or more humanized by religion, it is even probable that 
he might have discharged his high duties with consider- 

lo able distinction ; but his lot was thrown upon stormy 
times, and a most difficult crisis amongst tribes whose 
native ferocity was exasperated by debasing forms of 
superstition, and by a nationality as well as an inflated 
conceit of their own merit absolutely unparalleled ; whilst 

15 the circumstances of their hard and trying position under 
the jealous surveillance of an irresistible lord paramount, 
in the person of the Russian Czar, gave a fiercer edge to 
the natural unamiableness of the Kalmuck disposition, and 
irritated its gloomier qualities into action under the rest- 

20 less impulses of suspicion and permanent distrust. No 
prince could hope for a cordial allegiance from his sub- 
jects or a peaceful reign under the circumstances of the 
case ; for the dilemma in which a Kalmuck ruler stood 
at present was of this nature : wanting the support and 

25 sanction of the Czar, he was inevitably too weak from 
without to command confidence from his subjects or 
resistance to his competitors. On the other hand, with 
this kind of support, and deriving his title in any degree 
from the favor of the Imperial Court, he became almost 

30 in that extent an object of hatred at home and within the 
whole compass of his own territory. He was at once an 
object of hatred for the past, being a living monument of 
national independence ignominiously surrendered ; and an 
object of jealousy for the future, as one who had already 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 5 

advertised himself to be a fitting tool for the ultimate 
purposes (whatsoever those might prove to be) of the 
Russian Court. Coming himself to the Kalmuck sceptre 
under the heaviest weight of prejudice from the unfor- 
tunate circumstances of his position, it might have been 5 
expected that Oubacha would have been pre-eminently 
an object of detestation; for, besides his known depend- 
ence upon the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, the direct line 
of succession had been set aside, and the principle of 
inheritance violently suspended, in favor of his own 10 
father, so recently as nineteen years before the era of his 
own accession, consequently within the lively remem- 
brance of the existing generation. He, therefore, almost 
equally with his father, stood within the full current of 
the national prejudices, and might have anticipated the 15 
most pointed hostility. But it was not so : such are the 
caprices in human affairs that he was even, in a moderate 
sense, popular — a benefit which wore the more cheering 
aspect and the promises of permanence, inasmuch as he 
owed it exclusively to his personal qualities of kindness 20 
and affability, as well as to the beneficence of his govern- 
ment. On the other hand, to balance this unlooked-for 
prosperity at the outset of his reign,' he met with a rival 
in popular favor — almost a competitor — in the person of 
Zebek-Dorchi, a prince with considerable pretensions to 25 
the throne, and, perhaps it might be said, with equal pre- 
tensions. Zebek-Dorchi was a direct descendant of the 
same royal house as himself, through a different branch. 
On public grounds, his claim stood, perhaps, on a footing 
equally good with that of Oubacha, whilst his personal 30 
qualities, even in those aspects which seemed to a philo- 
sophical observer most odious and repulsive, promised 
the most effectual aid to the dark purposes of an intriguer 
or a conspirator, and were generally fitted to win a popular 



6 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

support precisely in those points where Oubacha was 
most defective. He was much superior in external ap- 
pearance to his rival on the throne, and so far better 
qualified to win the good opinion of a semi-barbarous 
5 people ; whilst his dark intellectual qualities of Machiavel- 
ian dissimulation, profound hypocrisy, and perfidy which 
knew no touch of remorse, were admirably calculated to 
sustain any ground which he might win from the simple- 
hearted people with whom he had to deal and from the 

10 frank carelessness of his unconscious competitor. 

At the very outset of his treacherous career, Zebek- 
Dorchi was sagacious enough to perceive that nothing 
could be gained by open declaration of hostility to the 
reigning prince : the choice had been a deliberate act on 

15 the part of Russia, and Elizabeth Petrowna was not the 
person to recall her own favors with levity or upon slight 
grounds. Openly, therefore, to have declared his enmity 
toward his relative on the throne, could have had no effect 
but that of arming suspicions against his own ulterior 

20 purposes in a quarter where it was most essential to his 
interest that, for the present, all suspicions should be 
hoodwinked. Accordingly, after much meditation, the 
course he took for opening his snares was this: - — He 
raised a rumor that his own life was in danger from the 

25 plots of several Saissang (that is, Kalmuck nobles), who 
were leagued together under an oath to assassinate him ; 
and immediately after, assuming a well-counterfeited 
alarm, he fled to Tcherkask, followed by sixty-five tents. 
From this place he kept up a correspondence with the 

30 Imperial Court, and, by way of soUciting his cause more 
effectually, he soon repaired in person to St. Petersburg. 
Once admitted to personal conferences with the cabinet, 
he found no difficulty in winning over the Russian coun- 
cils to a concurrence with some of his political views, 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 7 

and thus covertly introducing the point of that wedge 
which was finally to accomplish his purposes. In partic- 
ular, he persuaded the Russian Government to make a 
very important alteration in the constitution of the Kal- 
muck State Council which in effect reorganized the whole 5 
political condition of the state and disturbed the balance 
of power as previously adjusted. Of this council — in 
the Kalmuck language called Sarga — there were eight 
members, called Sargatchi ; and hitherto it had been the 
custom that these eight members should be entirely sub- 10 
ordinate to the Khan ; holding, in fact, the ministerial 
character of secretaries and assistants, but in no respect 
ranking as co-ordinate authorities. That had produced 
some inconveniences in former reigns ; and it was easy 
for Zebek-Dorchi to point the jealousy of the Russian 15 
Court to others more serious which might arise in future 
circumstances of war or other contingencies. It was 
resolved, therefore, to place the Sargatchi henceforward 
on a footing of perfect independence, and, therefore (as 
regarded responsibility), on a footing of equality with the 20 
Khan. Their independence, however, had respect only 
to their own sovereign ; for toward Russia they were 
placed in a new attitude of direct duty and accountability 
by the creation in their favor of small pensions (300 
roubles a year), which, however, to a Kalmuck of that 25 
day were more considerable than might be supposed, 
and had a further value as marks of honorary distinction 
emanating from a great empress. Thus far the purposes 
of Zebek-Dorchi were served effectually for the moment : 
but, apparently, it was only for the moment ; since, in 3° 
the further development of his plots, this very depend- 
ency upon Russian influence would be the most serious 
obstacle in his way. There was, however, another point 
carried, which outweisrhed all inferior considerations, as 



8 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

it gave him a power of setting aside discretionally what- 
soever should arise to disturb his plots : he was himself 
appointed President and Controller of the Sargatchi. 
The Russian Court had been aware of his high preten- 
5 sions by birth, and hoped by this promotion to satisfy 
the ambition which, in some degree, was acknowledged 
to be a reasonable passion for any man occupying his 
situation. 

Having thus completely blindfolded the Cabinet of 

lo Russia, Zebek-Dorchi proceeded in his new character to 
fulfil his political mission with the Khan of the Kalmucks. 
So artfully did he prepare the road for his favorable 
reception at the court of this prince that he was at once 
and universally welcomed as a public benefactor. The 

15 pensions of the councillors were so much additional wealth 
poured into the Tartar exchequer ; as to the ties of depend- 
ency thus created, experience had not yet enlightened 
these simple tribes as to that result. And that he himself 
should be the chief of these mercenary councillors was so 

20 far from being charged upon Zebek as any offence or any 
ground of suspicion, that his relative the Khan returned 
him hearty thanks for his services, under the belief that 
he could have accepted this appointment only with a view 
to keep out other and more unwelcome pretenders, who 

25 would not have had the same motives of consanguinity or 
friendship for executing its duties in a spirit of kindness 
to the Kalmucks. The first use which he made of his 
new functions about the Khan's person was to attack the 
Court of Russia, by a romantic villainy not easily to be 

30 credited, for those very acts of interference with the 
council which he himself had prompted. This was a 
dangerous step : but it was indispensable to his farther 
advance upon the gloomy path which he had traced out 
for himself. A triple vengeance was what he meditated : 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 9 

I, upon the Russian Cabinet, for having undervalued his 
own pretensions to the throne ; 2, upon his amiable rival, 
for having supplanted him ; and 3, upon all those of the 
nobility who had manifested their sense of his weakness 
by their neglect or their sense of his perfidious character 5 
by their suspicions. Here was a colossal outline of wick- 
edness ; and by one in his situation, feeble (as it might 
seem) for the accomplishment of its humblest parts, how 
was the total edifice to be reared in its comprehensive 
grandeur ? He, a worm as he was, could he venture to 10 
assail the mighty behemoth of Muscovy, the potentate 
who counted three hundred languages around the foot- 
steps of his throne, and from whose " lion ramp " recoiled 
alike " baptized and infidel " — Christendom on the one 
side, strong by her intellect and her organization, and the 15 
" barbaric East " on the other, with her unnumbered 
numbers ? The match was a monstrous one ; but in its 
very monstrosity there lay this germ of encouragement — 
that it could not be suspected. The very hopelessness 
of the scheme grounded his hope ; and he resolved to 20 
execute a vengeance which should involve as it were, in 
the unity of a well-laid tragic fable, all whom he judged 
to be his enemies. That vengeance lay in detaching from 
the Russian empire the whole Kalmuck nation and break- 
ing up that system of intercourse which had thus far been 25 
beneficial to both. This last was a consideration which 
moved him but little. True it was that Russia to the 
Kalmucks had secured lands and extensive pasturage ; 
true it was that the Kalmucks reciprocally to Russia had 
furnished a powerful cavalry ; but the latter loss would be 30 
part of his triumph, and the former might be more than 
compensated in other climates, under other sovereigns. 
Here was a scheme which, in its final accomplishment, 
would avenge him bitterly on the Czarina, and in the 



10 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

course of its accomplishment might furnish him with 
ample occasions for removing his other enemies. It may 
be readily supposed, indeed, that he who could deliber- 
ately raise his eyes to the Russian autocrat as an antago- 
5 nist in single duel with himself was not likely to feel much 
anxiety about Kalmuck enemies of whatever rank. He 
took his resolution, therefore, sternly and irrevocably, to 
effect this astonishing translation of an ancient people 
across the pathless deserts of Central Asia, intersected 

lo continually by rapid rivers rarely furnished with bridges, 
and of which the fords were known only to those who 
might think it for their interest to conceal them, through 
many nations inhospitable or hostile : frost and snow 
around them (from the necessity of commencing their 

15 flight in winter), famine in their front, and the sabre, or 
even the artillery of an offended and mighty empress 
hanging upon their rear for thousands of miles. But what 
was to be their final mark — the port of shelter after so 
fearful a course of wandering } Two things were evident : 

20 it must be some power at a great distance from Russia, 
so as to make return even in that view hopeless, and it 
must be a power of sufficient rank to insure them protec- 
tion from any hostile efforts on the part of the Czarina 
for reclaiming them or for chastising their revolt. Both 

25 conditions were united obviously in the person of Kien 
Long, the reigning Emperor of China, who was further 
recommended to them by his respect for the head of 
their religion. To China, therefore, and, as their first 
rendezvous, to the shadow of the Great Chinese Wall, it 

30 was settled by Zebek that they should direct their flight. 
Next came the question of time — ivheit should the 
flight commence ? and, finally, the more delicate question 
as to the choice of accomplices. To extend the knowl- 
edge of the conspiracy too far was to insure its betrayal 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 11 

to the Russian Government. Yet, at some stage of the 
preparations, it was evident that a very extensive confi- 
dence must be made, because in no other way could the 
mass of the Kalmuck population be persuaded to furnish 
their families with the requisite equipments for so long a 5 
migration. This critical step, however, it was resolved 
to defer up to the latest possible moment, and, at all 
events, to make no general communication on the sub- 
ject until the time of departure should be definitely 
settled. In the meantime, Zebek admitted only three 10 
persons to his confidence ; of whom Oubacha, the reign- 
ing prince, was almost necessarily one ; but him, for his 
yielding and somewhat feeble character, he viewed rather 
in the light of a tool than as one of his active accom- 
plices. Those whom (if anybody) he admitted to an un- 15 
reserved participation in his counsels were two only : the 
great Lama among the Kalmucks, and his own father-in- 
law, Erempel, a ruling prince of some tribe in the neigh- 
borhood of the Caspian Sea, recommended to his favor 
not so much by any strength of talent corresponding to 20 
the occasion as by his blind devotion to himself and 
his passionate anxiety to promote the elevation of his 
daughter and his son-in-law to the throne of a sovereign 
prince. A titular prince Zebek already was : but this 
dignity, without the substantial accompaniment of a seep- 25 
tre, seemed but an empty sound to both of these ambi- 
tious rebels. The other accomplice, whose name was 
Loosang-Dchaltzan, and whose rank was that of Lama, 
or Kalmuck pontiff, was a person of far more distin- 
guished pretensions ; he had something of the same 30 
gloomy and terrific pride which marked the character of 
Zebek himself, manifesting also the same energy, accom- 
panied by the same unfaltering cruelty, and a natural 
facility of dissimulation even more profound. It was by 



12 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

this man that the other question was settled as to the 
time for giving effect to their designs. His own pontifi- 
cal character had suggested to him that, in order to 
strengthen their influence with the vast mob of simple- 
5 minded men whom they were to lead into a howling 
wilderness, after persuading them to lay desolate their 
own ancient hearths, it was indispensable that they should 
be able, in cases of extremity, to plead the express sanc- 
tion of God for their entire enterprise. This could only 

10 be done by addressing themselves to the great head of 
their religion, the Dalai-Lama of Tibet. Him they easily 
persuaded to countenance their schemes : and an oracle 
was delivered solemnly at Tibet, to the eft'ect that no 
ultimate prosperity would attend this great Exodus unless 

15 it were pursued through the years of the tiger and the 
ha?-e. Now the Kalmuck custom is to distinguish their 
years by attaching to each a denomination taken from one 
of twelve animals, the exact order of succession being 
absolutely fixed, so that the cycle revolves of course 

20 through a period of a dozen years. Consequently, if the 
approaching year of the tiger were suffered to escape 
them, in that case the expedition must be delayed for 
twelve years more ; within which period, even were no 
other unfavorable changes to arise, it was pretty well 

25 foreseen that the Russian Government would take most 
effectual means for bridling their vagrant propensities by 
a ring-fence of forts or military posts ; to say nothing of 
the still readier plan for securing their fidelity (a plan 
already talked of in all quarters) by exacting a large body 

30 of hostages selected from the families of the most influen- 
tial nobles. On these cogent considerations, it was sol- 
emnly determined that this terrific experiment should be 
made in the next year of the tiger., which happened to fall 
upon the Christian year 1771. With respect to the 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 13 

month, there was, unhappily for the Kalmucks, even less 
latitude allowed to their choice than with respect to the 
year. It was absolutely necessary, or it was thought so, 
that the different divisions of the nation, which pastured 
their flocks on both banks of the Wolga, should have the 5 
means of effecting an instantaneous junction, because 
the danger of being intercepted by flying columns of the 
imperial armies was precisely the greatest at the outset. 
Now, from the want of bridges or sufficient river craft 
for transporting so vast a body of men, the sole means 10 
which could be depended upon (especially where so many 
women, children, and camels were concerned) was ice; 
and this, in a state of sufficient firmness, could not be 
absolutely counted upon before the month of January. 
Hence it happened that this astonishing Exodus of a 15 
whole nation, before so much as a whisper of the design 
had begun to circulate amongst those whom it most inter- 
ested, before it was even suspected that any man's wishes 
pointed in that direction, had been definitely appointed 
for January of the year 1771. And almost up to the 20 
Christmas of 1770 the poor simple Kalmuck herdsmen 
and their families were going nightly to their peaceful 
beds without even dreaming that the fiat had already 
gone forth from their rulers which consigned those quiet 
abodes, together with the peace and comfort which reigned 25 
within them, to a withering desolation, now close at 
hand. 

Meantime war raged on a great scale between Russia 
and the Sultan ; and, until the time arrived for throwing 
off their vassalage, it was necessary that Oubacha should 30 
contribute his usual contingent of martial aid. Nay, it 
had unfortunately become prudent that he should con- 
tribute much more than his usual aid. Human experi- 
ence gives ample evidence that in some mysterious and 



14 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

unaccountable way no great design is ever agitated, no 
matter how few or how faithful may be the participators, 
but that some presentiment — some dim misgiving — is 
kindled amongst those whom it is chiefly important to 
5 blind. And, however it might have happened, certain it 
is that already, when as yet no syllable of the conspiracy 
had been breathed to any man whose very existence was 
not staked upon its concealment, nevertheless some vague 
and uneasy jealousy had arisen in the Russian Cabinet 

lo as to the future schemes of the Kalmuck Khan : and 
very probable it is that, but for the war then raging, and 
the consequent prudence of conciliating a very important 
vassal, or, at least, of abstaining from what would power- 
fully alienate him, even at that moment such measures 

15 would have been adopted as must forever have inter- 
cepted the Kalmuck schemes. Slight as were the jeal- 
ousies of the Imperial Court, they had not escaped the 
Machiavelian eyes of Zebek and the Lama. And under 
their guidance, Oubacha, bending to the circumstances of 

20 the moment, and meeting the jealousy of the Russian 
Court with a policy corresponding to their own, strove by 
unusual zeal to efface the Czarina's unfavorable impres- 
sions. He enlarged the scale of his contributions, and 
that so prodigiously that he absolutely carried to head- 

25 quarters a force of 35,000 cavalry, fully equipped: some 
go further, and rate the amount beyond 40,000 ; but the 
smaller estimate is, at all events, within the truth. 

With this magnificent array of cavalry, heavy as well as 
light, the Khan went into the field under great expecta- 

30 tions ; and these he more than realized. Having the 
good fortune to be concerned with so ill-organized and 
disorderly a description of force as that which at all times 
composed the bulk of a Turkish army, he carried victory 
along with his banners ; gained many partial successes ; 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 15 

and at last, in a pitched battle, overthrew the Turkish 
force opposed to him, with a loss of 5000 men left upon 
the field. 

These splendid achievements seemed likely to operate 
in various ways against the impending revolt. Oubacha 5 
had now a strong motive, in the martial glory acquired, 
for continuing his connection with the empire in whose 
service he had won it, and by whom only it could be fully 
appreciated. He was now a great marshal of a great 
empire, one of the Paladins around the imperial throne ; 10 
in China he would be nobody, or (worse than that) a men- 
dicant alien, prostrate at the feet, and soliciting the pre- 
carious alms, of a prince with whom he had no connection. 
Besides, it might reasonably be expected that the Czar- 
ina, grateful for the really efficient aid given by the Tartar 15 
prince, would confer upon him such eminent rewards as 
might be sufficient to anchor his hopes upon Russia, and 
to wean him from every possible seduction. These were 
the obvious suggestions of prudence and good sense to 
every man who stood neutral in the case. But they were 20 
disappointed. The Czarina knew her obligations to the 
Khan, but she did not acknowledge them. Wherefore ? 
That is a mystery perhaps never to be explained. So it 
was, however. The Khan went unhonored ; no ukase 
ever proclaimed his merits ; and, perhaps, had he even 25 
been abundantly recompensed by Russia, there were 
others who would have defeated these tendencies to 
reconciliation. Erempel, Zebek, and Loosang the Lama 
were pledged life-deep to prevent any accommodation ; 
and their efforts were unfortunately seconded by those of 30 
their deadliest enemies. In the Russian Court there were 
at that time some great nobles preoccupied with feelings 
of hatred and blind malice toward the Kalmucks quite as 
strong as any which the Kalmucks could harbor toward 



16 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

Russia, and not, perhaps, so well founded. Just as much 
as the Kalmucks hated the Russian yoke, their galling 
assumption of authority, the marked air of disdain, as 
toward a nation of ugly, stupid, and filthy barbarians, 
5 which too generally marked the Russian bearing and 
language, but, above all, the insolent contempt, or even 
outrages, which the Russian governors or great military 
commandants tolerated in their followers toward the bar- 
barous religion and superstitious mummeries of the Kal- 

10 muck priesthood — precisely in that extent did the ferocity 
of the Russian resentment, and their wrath at seeing the 
trampled worm turn or attempt a feeble retaliation, react 
upon the unfortunate Kalmucks. At this crisis, it is prob- 
able that envy and wounded pride, upon witnessing the 

15 splendid victories of Oubacha and Momotbacha over the 
Turks and Bashkirs, contributed strength to the Russian 
irritation. And it must have been through the intrigues 
of those nobles about her person who chiefly smarted 
under these feelings that the Czarina could ever have 

20 lent herself to the unwise and ungrateful policy pursued 
at this critical period toward the Kalmuck Khan. That 
Czarina was no longer Elizabeth Petrowna ; it was Cath- 
arine II. — a princess who did not often err so injuriously 
(injuriously for herself as much as for others) in the meas- 

25 ures of her government. She had soon ample reason for 
repenting of her false policy. Meantime, how much it 
must have co-operated with the other motives previously 
acting upon Oubacha in sustaining his determination to 
revolt, and how powerfully it must have assisted the efforts 

30 of all the Tartar chieftains in preparing the minds of their 
people to feel the necessity of this difficult enterprise, by 
arming their pride and their suspicions against the Rus- 
sian Government, through the keenness of their sympathy 
with the wrongs of their insulted prince, may be readily 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 17 

imagined. It is a fact, and it has been confessed by 
candid Russians themselves when treating of this great 
dismemberment, that the conduct of the Russian Cabinet 
throughout the period of suspense, and during the crisis 
of hesitation in the Kalmuck Council, was exactly such 5 
as was most desirable for the purposes of the conspira- 
tors ; it was such, in fact, as to set the seal to all their 
machinations, by supplying distinct evidences and official 
vouchers for what could otherwise have been at the most 
matters of doubtful suspicion and indirect presumption. 10 

Nevertheless, in the face of all. these arguments, and 
even allowing their weight so far as not at all to deny the 
injustice or the impolicy of the imperial ministers, it is 
contended by many persons who have reviewed the affair 
with a command of all the documents bearing on the case, 15 
more especially the letters or minutes of council subse- 
quently discovered in the handwriting of Zebek-Dorchi, 
and the important evidence of the Russian captive, Wesel- 
off, who was carried off by the Kalmucks in their flight, 
that beyond all doubt Oubacha was powerless for any 20 
purpose of impeding or even of delaying the revolt. He 
himself, indeed, was under religious obligations of the 
most terrific solemnity never to flinch from the enterprise 
or even to slacken in his zeal ; for Zebek-Dorchi, dis- 
trusting the firmness of his resolution under any unusual 25 
pressure of alarm or difficulty, had, in the very earliest 
stage of the conspiracy, availed himself of the Khan's 
well-known superstition, to engage him, by means of pre- 
vious concert with the priests and their head, the Lama, 
in some dark and mysterious rites of consecration, termi- 30 
nating in oaths under such terrific sanctions as no Kal- 
muck would have courage to violate. As far, therefore, 
as regarded the personal share of the Khan in what was 
to come, Zebek was entirely at his ease ; he knew him to 



18 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

be so deeply pledged by religious terrors to the prosecu- 
tion of the conspiracy that no honors within the Czarina's 
gift could have possibly shaken his adhesion ; and then, 
as to threats from the same quarter, he knew him to be 

5 sealed against those fears by others of a gloomier charac- 
ter, and better adapted to his peculiar temperament. For 
Oubacha was a brave man, as respected all bodily ene- 
mies or the dangers of human warfare, but was as sensi- 
tive and timid as the most superstitious of old women in 

lo facing the frowns of a priest or under the vague anticipa- 
tions of ghostly retributions. But had it been otherwise, 
and had there been any reason to apprehend an unsteady 
demeanor on the part of this prince at the approach 
of the critical moment, such were the changes already 

15 effected in the state of their domestic politics amongst 
the Tartars by the undermining arts of Zebek-Dorchi, and 
his ally the Lama, that very little importance would have 
attached to that doubt. All power was now effectually 
lodged in the hands of Zebek-Dorchi. He was the true 

20 and absolute wielder of the Kalmuck sceptre ; all meas- 
ures of importance were submitted to his discretion, and 
nothing was finally resolved but under his dictation. 
This result he had brought about, in a year or two, by 
means sufficiently simple : first of all, by availing himself 

25 of the prejudice in his favor, so largely diffused amongst 
the lowest of the Kalmucks, that his own title to the 
throne in quality of great-grandson in a direct line from 
Ajouka, the most illustrious of all the Kalmuck Khans, 
stood upon a better basis than that of Oubacha, who 

30 derived from a collateral branch ; secondly, with respect 
to the sole advantage which Oubacha possessed above 
himself in the ratification of his title, by improving this 
difference between their situations to the disadvantage 
of his competitor, as one who had not scrupled to accept 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 19 

that triumph from an alien power at the price of his inde- 
pendence, which he himself (as he would have it under- 
stood) disdained to court ; thirdly, by his own talents 
and address, coupled with the ferocious energy of his 
moral character ; fourthly — and perhaps in an equal 5 
degree — by the criminal facility and good nature of 
Oubacha ; finally (which is remarkable enough, as illus- 
trating the character of the man), by that very new mod- 
elling of the Sarga, or Privy Council, which he had used 
as a principal topic of abuse and malicious insinuation 10 
against the Russian Government, whilst, in reality, he 
first had suggested the alteration to the Empress, and 
he chiefly appropriated the political advantages which it 
was fitted to yield. For, as he was himself appointed the 
chief of the Sargatchi, and as the pensions of the inferior 15 
Sargatchi passed through his hands, whilst in effect they 
owed their appointments to his nomination, it may be 
easily supposed that, whatever power existed in the state 
capable of controlling the Khan, being held by the Sarga 
under its new organization, and this body being com- 20 
pletely under his influence, the final result was to throw 
all the functions of the state, whether nominally in the 
prince or in the council, substantially into the hands of 
this one man ; whilst, at the same time, from the strict 
league which he maintained with the Lama, all the thun- 25 
ders of the spiritual power were always ready to come in 
aid of the magistrate, or to supply his incapacity in cases 
which he could not reach. 

But the time was now rapidly approaching for the 
mighty experiment. The day was drawing near on which 30 
the signal was to be given for raising the standard of 
revolt, an.d, by a combined movement on both sides of the 
Wolga, for spreading the smoke of one vast conflagration 
that should wrap in a common blaze their own huts and 



20 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

the Stately cities of their enemies over the breadth and 
length of those great provinces in which their flocks were 
dispersed. The year of the tiger was now within one 
little month of its commencement ; the fifth morning of 
5 that year was fixed for the fatal day when the fortunes 
and happiness of a whole nation were to be put upon the 
hazard of a dicer's throw ; and as yet that nation was in 
profound ignorance of the whole plan. The Khan, such 
was the kindness of his nature, could not bring himself to 

10 make the revelation so urgently required. It was clear, 
however, that this could not be delayed ; and Zebek- 
Dorchi took the task willingly upon himself. But where 
or how should this notification be made, so as to exclude 
Russian hearers ? After some deliberation the following 

15 plan was adopted: — Couriers, it was contrived, should 
arrive in furious haste, one upon the heels of another, 
reporting a sudden inroad of the Kirghises and Bashkirs 
upon the Kalmuck lands, at a point distant about 120 
miles. Thither all the Kalmuck families, according to 

20 immemorial custom, were required to send a separate rep- 
resentative ; and there, accordingly, within three days, all 
appeared. The distance, the solitary ground appointed 
for the rendezvous, the rapidity of the march, all tended 
to make it almost certain that no Russian could be 

25 present. Zebek-Dorchi then came forward. He did 
not waste many words upon rhetoric. He unfurled an 
immense sheet of parchment, visible from the outermost 
distance at which any of this vast crowd could stand ; 
the total number amounted to 80,000 ; all saw, and many 

30 heard. They were told of the oppressions of Russia ; 
of her pride and haughty disdain, evidenced toward them 
by a thousand acts ; of her contempt for their religion ; 
of her determination to reduce them to absolute slavery ; 
of the preliminary measures she had already taken by 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 21 

erecting forts upon many of the great rivers of their neigh- 
borhood ; of the ulterior intentions she thus announced 
to circumscribe their pastoral lands, until they would all 
be obliged to renounce their flocks, and to collect in 
towns like Sarepta, there to pursue mechanical and servile 5 
trades of shoemaker, tailor, and weaver, such as the free- 
born Tartar had always disdained. " Then again," said 
the subtle prince, " she increases her military levies upon 
our population every year. We pour out our blood as 
young men in her defence, or, more often, in support of 10 
her insolent aggressions ; and, as old men, we reap noth- 
ing from our sufferings nor benefit by our survivorship 
where so many are sacrificed." At this point of his 
harangue Zebek produced several papers (forged, as it is 
generally believed, by himself and the Lama), containing 15 
projects of the Russian Court for a general transfer of 
the eldest sons, taken en masse from the greatest Kalmuck 
families, to the Imperial Court. " Now, let this be once 
accomplished," he argued, " and there is an end of all 
useful resistance from that day forwards. Petitions we 20 
might make, or even remonstrances ; as men of words, 
we might play a bold part ; but for deeds ; for that sort 
of language by which our ancestors were used to speak — 
holding us by such a chain, Russia would make a jest of 
our wishes, knowing full well that we should not dare to 25 
make any effectual movement. 

Having thus sufficiently roused the angry passions of 
his vast audience, and having alarmed their fears by this 
pretended scheme against their firstborn (an artifice 
which was indispensable to his purpose, because it met 30 
beforehand every form of amendment to his proposal 
coming from the more moderate nobles, who would not 
otherwise have failed to insist upon trying the effect of 
bold addresses to the Empress before resorting to any 



22 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

desperate extremity), Zebek-Dorchi opened his scheme of 
revolt, and, if so, of instant revolt ; since any preparations 
reported at St. Petersburg would be a signal for the 
armies of Russia to cross into such positions from all 
5 parts of Asia as would effectually intercept their march. 
It is remarkable, however, that with all his audacity and 
his reliance upon the momentary excitement of the Kal- 
mucks, the subtle prince did not venture, at this stage of 
his seduction, to make so startling a proposal as that of 

10 a flight to China. All that he held out for the present 
was a rapid march to the Temba or some other great 
river, which they were to cross, and to take up a strong 
position on the farther bank, from which, as from a post 
of conscious security, they could hold a bolder language 

15 to the Czarina, and one which would have a better chance 
of winning a favorable audience. 

These things, in the irritated condition of the simple 
Tartars, passed by acclamation ; and all returned home- 
ward to push forward with the most furious speed the 

20 preparations for their awful undertaking. Rapid and 
energetic these of necessity were ; and in that degree 
they became noticeable and manifest to the Russians who 
happened to be intermingled with the different hordes, 
either on commercial errands, or as agents officially from 

25 the Russian Government, some in a financial, others in a 
diplomatic character. 

Among these last (indeed, at the head of them) was a 
Russian of some distinction, by name Kichinskoi — a man 
memorable for his vanity, and memorable also as one of 

30 the many victims to the Tartar revolution. This Kichin- 
skoi had been sent by the Empress as her envoy to over- 
look the conduct of the Kalmucks. He was styled the 
Grand Pristaw, or Great Commissioner, and was univer- 
sally known amongst the Tartar tribes by this title. His 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 23 

mixed character of ambassador and of political surveillant, 
combined with the dependent state of the Kalmucks, 
gave him a real weight in the Tartar councils, and might 
have given him a far greater had not his outrageous 
self-conceit and his arrogant confidence in his own 5 
authority, as due chiefly to his personal qualities for 
command, led him into such harsh displays of power, 
and menaces so odious to the Tartar pride, as very soon 
made him an object of their profoundest malice. He had 
publicly insulted the Khan ; and, upon making a commu- 10 
nication to him to the effect that some reports began to 
circulate, and even to reach the Empress, of a design in 
agitation to fiy from the imperial dominions, he had ven- 
tured to say, " But this you dare not attempt ; I laugh at 
such rumors ; yes. Khan, I laugh at them to the Empress; 15 
for you are a chained bear, and that you know." The 
Khan turned away on his heel with marked disdain ; and 
the Pristaw, foaming at the mouth, continued to utter, 
amongst those of the Khan's attendants who stayed 
behind to catch his real sentiments in a moment of un- 20 
guarded passion, all that the blindest frenzy of rage could 
suggest to the most presumptuous of fools. It was now 
ascertained that suspicion had arisen ; but, at the same 
time, it was ascertained that the Pristaw spoke no more 
than the truth in representing himself to have discredited 25 
these suspicions. The fact was that the mere infatuation 
of vanity made him believe that nothing could go on un- 
detected by his all-piercing sagacity, and that no rebellion 
could prosper when rebuked by his commanding presence. 
The Tartars, therefore, pursued their preparations, con- 30 
fiding in the obstinate blindness of the Grand Pristaw as 
in their perfect safeguard, and such it proved — to his 
own ruin as well as that of myriads beside. 

Christmas arrived ; and, a little before that time, courier 



24 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

upon courier came dropping in, one upon the very heels 
of another, to St. Petersburg, assuring the Czarina that 
beyond all doubt the Kalmucks were in the very crisis of 
departure. These dispatches came from the Governor 
5 of Astrachan, and copies were instantly forwarded to 
Kichinskoi. Now, it happened that between this gov- 
ernor : — a Russian named Beketoff — and the Pristaw 
had been an ancient feud. The very name of Beketoff 
inflamed his resentment ; and no sooner did he see that 

10 hated name attached to the dispatch than he felt himself 
confirmed in his former views with tenfold bigotry, and 
wrote instantly, in terms of the most pointed ridicule, 
against the new alarmist, pledging his own head upon the 
visionariness of his alarms. Beketoff, however, was not 

15 to be put down by a few hard words, or by ridicule : he 
persisted in his statements ; the Russian ministry were 
confounded by the obstinacy of the disputants ; and some 
were beginning even to treat the Governor of Astrachan 
as a bore, and as the dupe of his own nervous terrors, 

20 when the memorable day arrived, the fatal 5th of January, 
which forever terminated the dispute and put a seal upon 
the earthly hopes and fortunes of unnumbered myriads. 
The Governor of Astrachan was the first to hear the news. 
Stung by the mixed furies of jealousy, of triumphant 

25 vengeance, and of anxious ambition, he sprang into his 
sledge, and, at the rate of 300 miles a day, pursued his 
route to St. Petersburg — rushed into the Imperial pres- 
ence — announced the total realization of his worst pre- 
dictions ; and, upon the confirmation of this intelligence 

30 by subsequent dispatches from many different posts on 
the Wolga, he received an imperial commission to seize 
the person of his deluded enemy and to keep him in strict 
captivity. These orders were eagerly fulfilled ; and the 
unfortunate Kichinskoi soon afterwards expired of grief 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 25 

and mortification in the gloomy solitude of a dungeon — 
a victim to his own immeasurable vanity and the blinding 
self-delusions of a presumption that refused all warning. 
The Governor of Astrachan had been but too faithful 
a prophet. Perhaps even he was surprised at the sud- 5 
denness with which the verification followed his reports. 
Precisely on the 5 th of January, the day so solemnly 
appointed under religious sanctions by the Lama, the 
Kalmucks on the east bank of the Wolga were seen at 
the earliest dawn of day assembling by troops and 10 
squadrons and in the tumultuous movement of some great 
morning of battle. Tens of thousands continued moving 
off the ground at every half hour's interval. Women 
and children, to the amount of two hundred thousand and 
upward, were placed upon wagons or upon camels, and 15 
drew off by masses of twenty thousand at once — placed 
under suitable escorts, and continually swelled in numbers 
by other outlying bodies of the horde, who kept falling 
in at various distances upon the first and second day's 
march. From sixty to eighty thousand of those who 20 
were the best mounted stayed behind the rest of the 
tribes, with purposes of devastation and plunder more 
violent than prudence justified or the amiable character 
of the Khan could be supposed to approve. But in this, 
as in other instances, he was completely overruled by the 25 
malignant counsels of Zebek-Dorchi. The first tempest 
of the desolating fury of the Tartars discharged itself 
upon their own habitations. But this, as cutting off all 
infirm looking backward from the hardships of their 
march, had been thought so necessary a measure by all 30 
the chieftains that even Oubacha himself was the first to 
authorize the act by his own example. He seized a torch 
previously prepared with materials the most durable as 
well as combustible, and steadily applied it to the timbers 



26 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

of his own palace. Nothing was saved from the general 
wreck except the portable part of the domestic utensils 
and that part of the woodwork which could be applied 
to the manufacture of the long Tartar lances. This 
5 chapter in their memorable day's work being finished, 
and the whole of their villages throughout a district of 
ten thousand square miles in one simultaneous blaze, the 
Tartars waited for further orders. 

These, it was intended, should have taken a character of 

lo valedictory vengeance, and thus have left behind to the 
Czarina a dreadful commentary upon the main motives 
of their flight. It was the purpose of Zebek-Dorchi that 
all the Russian towns, churches, and buildings of every 
description should be given up to pillage and destruction, 

IS and such treatment applied to the defenceless inhabi- 
tants as might naturally be expected from a fierce people 
already infuriated by the spectacle of their own outrages, 
and by the bloody retaliations which they must necessarily 
have provoked. This part of the tragedy, however, was 

20 happily intercepted by a providential disappointment at 
the very crisis of departure. It has been mentioned 
already that the motive for selecting the depth of winter 
as the season of flight (which otherwise was obviously 
the very worst possible) had been the impossibility of 

25 effecting a junction sufficiently rapid with the tribes on 
the west of the Wolga, in the absence of bridges, unless 
by a natural bridge of ice. For this one advantage the 
Kalmuck leaders had consented to aggravate by a thou- 
sand-fold the calamities inevitable to a rapid flight over 

30 boundless tracts of country with women, children, and 
herds of cattle — for this one single advantage ; and yet, 
after all, it was lost. The reason never has been explained 
satisfactorily, but the fact was such. Some have said 
that the signals were not properly concerted for marking 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 27 

the moment of absolute departure — that is, for signify- 
ing whether the settled intention of the Eastern Kalmucks 
might not have been suddenly interrupted by adverse 
intelligence. Others have supposed that the ice might 
not be equally strong on both sides of the river, and 5 
might even be generally insecure for the treading of 
heavy and heavily laden animals such as camels. But 
the prevailing notion is that some accidental movements 
on the 3d and 4th of January of Russian troops in the 
neighborhood of the Western Kalmucks, though really 10 
having no reference to them or their plans, had been con- 
strued into certain signs that all was discovered, and that 
the prudence of the Western chieftains, who, from situa- 
tion, had never been exposed to those intrigues by which 
Zebek-Dorchi had practised upon the pride of the Eastern 15 
tribes, now stepped in to save their people from ruin. 
Be the cause what it might, it is certain that the Western 
Kalmucks were in some way prevented from forming the 
intended junction with their brethren of the opposite 
bank ; and the result was that at least one hundred 20 
thousand of these Tartars were left behind in Russia. 
This accident it was which saved their Russian neighbors 
universally from the desolation which else awaited them. 
One general massacre and conflagration would assuredly 
have surprised them, to the utter extermination of their 25 
property, their houses, and themselves, had it not been 
for this disappointment. But the Eastern chieftains did 
not dare to put to hazard the safety of their brethren 
under the first impulse of the Czarina's vengeance for so 
dreadful a tragedy ; for, as they were well aware of too many 30 
circumstances by which she might discover the concurrence 
of the Western people in the general scheme of revolt, 
they justly feared that she would thence infer their concur- 
rence also in the bloody events which marked its outset. 



28 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

Little did the Western Kalmucks guess what reasons 
they also had for gratitude, on account of an interposition 
so unexpected, and which at the moment they so generally 
deplored. Could they but have witnessed the thousandth 
5 part of the sufferings which overtook their Eastern breth- 
ren in the first month of their sad flight, they would have 
blessed Heaven for their own narrow escape ; and yet 
these sufferings of the first month were but a prelude or 
foretaste comparatively slight of those which afterward 

10 succeeded. 

For now began to unroll the most awful series of 
calamities, and the most extensive, which is anywhere 
recorded to have visited the sons and daughters of men. 
It is possible that the sudden inroads of destroying 

15 nations, such as the Huns, or the Avars, or the Mongol 
Tartars, may have inflicted misery as extensive ; but there 
the misery and the desolation would be sudden, like the 
flight of volleying lightning. Those who were spared at 
first would generally be spared to the end ; those who 

20 perished would perish instantly. It is possible that the 
French retreat from Moscow may have made some nearer 
approach to this calamity in duration, though still a feeble 
and miniature approach ; for the French sufferings did 
not commence in good earnest until about one month 

25 from the time of leaving Moscow ; and though it is true 
that afterward the vials of wrath were emptied upon the 
devoted army for six or seven weeks in succession, yet 
what is that to this Kalmuck tragedy, which lasted for 
more than as many months ? But the main feature of 

30 horror, by which the Tartar march was distinguished from 
the French, lies in the accompaniment of women ^ and 

1 Singular it is, and not generally known, that Grecian women 
accompanied the anabasis of the younger Cyrus and the subsequent 
retreat of the Ten Thousand. Xenophon affirms that there were 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 29 

children. There were both, it is true, with the French 
army, but so few as to bear no visible proportion to the 
total numbers concerned. The P'rench, in short, were 
merely an army — a host of professional destroyers, whose 
regular trade was bloodshed, and whose regular element 5 
was danger and suffering. But the Tartars were a nation 
carrying along with them more than two hundred and 
fifty thousand women and children, utterly unequal, for 
the most part, to any contest with the calamities before 
them. The Children of Israel were in the same circum- 10 
stances as to the accompaniment of their families ; but 
they were released from the pursuit of their enemies in a 
very early stage of their flight; and their subsequent resi- 
dence in the Desert was not a march, but a continued halt 
and under a continued interposition of Heaven for their 15 
comfortable support. Earthquakes, again, however com- 
prehensive in their ravages, are shocks of a moment's 
duration. A much nearer approach made to the wide 
range and the long duration of the Kalmuck tragedy may 
have been in a pestilence such as that which visited 20 
Athens in the Peloponnesian war, or London in the reign 
of Charles II. There, also, the martyrs were counted by 
myriads, and the period of the desolation was counted 
by months. But, after all, the total amount of destruction 
was on a smaller scale ; and there was this feature of 25 
alleviation to the conscious pressure of the calamity — that 
the misery was withdrawn from public notice into private 
chambers and hospitals. The siege of Jerusalem by 
Vespasian and his son, taken in its entire circumstances, 
comes nearest of all — for breadth and depth of suffering, 30 
for duration, for the exasperation of the suffering from 

" many " women in the Greek army — TroXXat ^crai' kraXpai kv tc^ 
arpaTei/iiaTi; and in a late stage of that trying expedition it is evident 
that women were amongst the survivors. 



30 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

without by internal feuds, and, finally, for that last most 
appalling expression of the furnace heat of the anguish in 
its power to extinguish the natural affections even of 
maternal love. But, after all, each case had circumstances 
5 of romantic misery peculiar to itself — circumstances 
without precedent, and (wherever human nature is enno- 
bled by Christianity), it may be confidently hoped, never 
to be repeated. 

The first point to be reached, before any hope of repose 

lo could be encouraged, was the River Jaik. This was not 
above 300 miles from the main point of departure on the 
Wolga ; and, if the march thither was to be a forced one 
and a severe one, it was alleged, on the other hand, that 
the suffering would be the more brief and transient ; 

15 one summary exertion, not to be repeated, and all was 
achieved. Forced the march was, and severe beyond 
example: there the forewarning proved correct; but the 
promised rest proved a mere phantom of the wilderness 
— a visionary rainbow, which fled before their hope-sick 

20 eyes, across these interminable solitudes, for seven months 
of hardship and calamity, without a pause. These suffer- 
ings, by their very nature and the circumstances under 
which they arose, were (like the scenery of the steppes) 
somewhat monotonous in their coloring and external 

25 features ; what variety, however, there was, will be most 
naturally exhibited by tracing historically the successive 
stages of the general misery exactly as it unfolded itself 
under the double agency of weakness still increasing from 
within and hostile pressure from without. Viewed in this 

30 manner, under the real order of development, it is remark- 
able that these sufferings of the Tartars, though under 
the moulding hands of accident, arrange themselves 
almost with a scenical propriety. They seem combined 
as with the skill of an artist; the intensity of the misery 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 31 

advancing regularly with the advances of the march, and 
the stages of the calamity corresponding to the stages 
of the route ; so that, upon raising the curtain which 
veils the great catastrophe, we behold one vast climax of 
anguish, towering upward by regular gradations as if con- s 
structed artificially for picturesque effect — a result which 
might not have been surprising had it been reasonable to 
anticipate the same rate of speed, and even an accelerated 
rate, as prevailing through the latter stages of the expedi- 
tion. But it seemed, on the contrary, most reasonable to lo 
calculate upon a continual decrement in the rate of motion 
according to the increasing distance from the headquarters 
of the pursuing enemy. This calculation, however, was 
defeated by the extraordinary circumstance that the Rus- 
sian armies did not begin to close in very fiercely upon 15 
the Kalmucks until after they had accomplished a distance 
of full 2000 miles: 1000 miles farther on the assaults 
became even more tumultuous and murderous: and already 
the great shadows of the Chinese Wall were dimly descried, 
when the frenzy and acharnement of the pursuers and the 20 
bloody desperation of the miserable fugitives had reached 
its uttermost extremity. Let us briefly rehearse the main 
stages of the misery and trace the ascending steps of the 
tragedy, according to the great divisions of the route 
marked out by the central rivers of Asia. 25 

The first stage, we have already said, was from the 
Wolga to the Jaik; the distance about 300 miles; the time 
allowed seven days. For the first week, therefore, the 
rate of marching averaged about 43 English miles a day. 
The weather was cold, but bracing; and, at a more 30 
moderate pace, this part of the journey might have been 
accomplished without much distress by a people as hardy 
as the Kalmucks : as it was, the cattle suffered greatly 
from overdriving; milk began to fail even for the children; 



32 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

the sheep perished by wholesale ; and the children them- 
selves were saved only by the innumerable camels. 

The Cossacks who dwelt upon the banks of the Jaik 
were the first among the subjects of Russia to come into 

5 collision with the Kalmucks. Great was their surprise at 
the suddenness of the irruption, and great also their con- 
sternation ; for, according to their settled custom, by far 
the greater part of their number was absent during the 
winter months at the fisheries upon the Caspian. Some 

10 who were liable to surprise at the most exposed points 
fled in crowds to the fortress of Koulagina, which was 
immediately invested and summoned by Oubacha. He 
had, however, in his train only a few light pieces of 
artillery ; and the Russian commandant at Koulagina, 

15 being aware of the hurried circumstances in which the 
Khan was placed, and that he stood upon the very edge, 
as it were, of a renewed flight, felt encouraged by these 
considerations to a more obstinate resistance than might 
else have been advisable with an enemy so little disposed 

20 to observe the usages of civilized warfare. The period of 
his anxiety was not long. On the fifth day of the siege 
he descried from the walls a succession of Tartar 
couriers, mounted upon fleet Bactrian camels, crossing 
the vast plains around the fortress at a furious pace and 

25 riding into the Kalmuck encampment at various points. 
Great agitation appeared immediately to follow: orders 
were soon after dispatched in all directions; and it became 
speedily known that upon a distant flank of the Kalmuck 
movement a bloody and exterminating battle had been 

30 fought the day before, in which one entire tribe of the 
Khan's dependents, numbering not less than 9000 fight- 
ing men, had perished to the last man. This was the 
ouloss^ or clan, called Feka-Zechorr, between whom and 
the Cossacks there was a feud of ancient standing. In 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 33 

selecting, therefore, the points of attack, on occasion of 
the present hasty inroad, the Cossack chiefs were natu- 
rally eager so to direct their efforts as to combine with 
the service of the Empress some gratification to their own 
party hatreds, more especially as the present was likely 5 
to be their final opportunity for revenge if the Kalmuck 
evasion should prosper. Having, therefore, concentrated 
as large a body of Cossack cavalry as circumstances 
allowed, they attacked the hostile oicloss with a precipita- 
tion which denied to it all means for communicating with 10 
Oubacha; for the necessity of commanding an ample range 
of pasturage, to meet the necessities of their vast flocks 
and herds, had separated this ouloss from the Khan's 
headquarters by an interval of 80 miles ; and thus it was, 
and not from oversight, that it came to be thrown entirely 15 
upon its own resources. These had proved insufficient : 
retreat, from the exhausted state of their horses and 
camels, no less than from the prodigious encumbrances 
of their live stock, was absolutely out of the question : 
quarter was disdained on the one side, and would not 20 
have been granted on the other: and thus it had happened 
that the setting sun of that one day (the thirteenth from 
the first opening of the revolt) threw his parting rays upon 
the final agonies of an ancient ouloss, stretched upon a 
bloody field, who on that day's dawning had held and 25 
styled themselves an independent nation. 

Universal consternation was diffused through the wide 
borders of the Khan's encampment by this disastrous 
intelligence, not so much on account of the numbers 
slain, or the total extinction of a powerful ally, as be- 30 
cause the position of the Cossack force was likely to put 
to hazard the future advances of the Kalmucks, or at 
least to retard and hold them in check until the heavier 
columns of the Russian army should arrive upon their 



34 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

flanks. The siege of Koulagina was instantly raised ; 
and that signal, so fatal to the happiness of the women 
and their children, once again resounded through the 
tents — the signal for flight, and this time for a flight 
5 more rapid than ever. About 150 miles ahead of their 
present position, there arose a tract of hilly country, 
forming a sort of margin to the vast, sealike expanse of 
champaign savannas, steppes, and occasionally of sandy 
deserts, which stretched away on each side of this margin 

10 both eastwards and westwards. Pretty nearly in the 
centre of this hilly range lay a narrow defile, through 
which passed the nearest and the most practicable route 
to the River Torgau (the farther bank of which river 
offered the next great station of security for a general 

15 halt). It was the more essential to gain this pass before 
the Cossacks, inasmuch as not only would the delay in 
forcing the pass give time to the Russian pursuing 
columns for combining their attacks and for bringing 
up their artillery, but also because (even if all enemies in 

20 pursuit were thrown out of the question) it was held, by 
those best acquainted with the difficult and obscure geog- 
raphy of these pathless steppes — that the loss of this one 
narrow strait amongst the hills would have the effect of 
throwing them (as their only alternative in a case where 

25 so wide a sweep of pasturage was required) upon a circuit 
of at least 500 miles extra; besides that, after all, this 
circuitous route would carry them to the Torgau at a point 
unfitted for the passage of their heavy baggage. The 
defile in the hills, therefore, it was resolved to gain ; and 

30 yet, unless they moved upon it with the velocity of light 
cavalry, there was little chance but it would be found 
preoccupied by the Cossacks. They, it is true, had 
suffered greatly in the recent sanguinary action with the 
defeated oiiloss; but the excitement of victory, and the 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 35 

intense sympathy with their unexampled triumph, had 
again swelled their ranks, and would probably act with 
the force of a vortex to draw in their simple countrymen 
from the Caspian. The question, therefore, of preoccu- 
pation was reduced to a race. The Cossacks were march- 5 
ing upon an oblique line not above 50 miles longer than 
that which led to the same point from the Kalmuck 
headquarters before Koulagina ; and therefore, without 
the most furious haste on the part of the Kalmucks, there 
was not a chance for them, burdened and "trashed"^ as 10 
they were, to anticipate so agile a light cavalry as the 
Cossacks in seizing this important pass. 

Dreadful were the feelings of the poor women on hear- 
ing this exposition of the case. For they easily under- 
stood that too capital an interest (the summa reruni) 15 
was now at stake to allow of any regard to minor inter- 
ests, or what would be considered such in their present- 
circumstances. The dreadful week already passed — 
their inauguration in misery — was yet fresh in their 
remembrance. The scars of suffering were impressed 20 
not only upon their memories, but upon their very persons 
and the persons of their children ; and they knew that, 
where no speed had much chance of meeting the cravings 
of the chieftains, no test would be accepted, short of 
absolute exhaustion, that as much had been accomplished 25 
as could be accomplished. Weseloff, the Russian captive, 
has recorded the silent wretchedness with which the 
women and elder boys assisted in drawing the tent ropes. 
On the 5th of January all had been animation and the 
joyousness of indefinite expectation ; now, on the con- 30 

1 " Trashed." This is an expressive word used by Beaumont and 
Fletcher irt their " Bonduca," etc., to describe the case of a person 
retarded or embarrassed in flight, or in pursuit, by some encumbrance, 
whether thing or person, too valuable to be left behind. 



36 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

trary, a brief but bitter experience had taught them to 
take an amended calculation of what it was that lay 
before them. 

One whole day and far into the succeeding night had 
5 the renewed flight continued ; the sufferings had been 
greater than before, for the cold had been more intense, 
and many perished out of the living creatures through 
every class except only the camels — whose powers of 
endurance seemed equally adapted to cold and heat. 

10 The second morning, however, brought an alleviation to 
the distress. Snow had begun to fall ; and, though not 
deep at present, it was easily foreseen that it soon would 
be so, and that, as a halt would in that case become 
unavoidable, no plan could be better than that of staying 

15 where they were, especially as the same cause would 
check the advance of the Cossacks. Here, then, was the 
last interval of comfort which gleamed upon the unhappy 
nation during their whole migration. For ten days the 
snow continued to fall with little intermission. At the 

20 end of that time, keen, bright, frosty weather succeeded ; 
the drifting had ceased. In three days the smooth ex- 
panse became firm enough to support the treading of the 
camels ; and the flight was recommenced. But during 
the halt much domestic comfort had been enjoyed ; and, 

25 for the last time, universal plenty. The cows and oxen 
had perished in such vast numbers on the previous 
marches that an order was now issued to turn what 
remained to account by slaughtering the whole, and 
salting whatever part should be found to exceed the 

30 immediate consumption. This measure led to a scene 
of general banqueting, and even of festivity amongst all 
who were not incapacitated for joyous emotions by dis- 
tress of mind, by grief for the unhappy experience of the 
few last days, and by anxiety for the too gloomy future. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 37 

Seventy thousand persons of all ages had already perished, 
exclusively of the many thousand allies who had been cut 
down by the Cossack sabre. And the losses in reversion 
were likely to be many more. For rumors began now to 
arrive from all quarters, by the mounted couriers whom 5 
the Khan had dispatched to the rear and to each flank as 
well as in advance, that large masses of the imperial troops 
were converging from all parts of Central Asia to the fords 
of the River Torgau, as the most convenient point for 
intercepting the flying tribes ; and it was already well 10 
■known that a powerful division was close in their rear, 
and was retarded only by the numerous artillery which 
had been judged necessary to support their operations. 
New motives were thus daily arising for quickening the 
motions of the wretched Kalmucks, and for exhausting 15 
those who were previously but too much exhausted. 

It was not until the 2d day of February that the 
Khan's advanced guard came in sight of Ouchim, the 
defile among the hills of Moulgaldchares, in which they 
anticipated so bloody an opposition from the Cossacks. 20 
A pretty large body of these light cavalry had, in fact, 
preoccupied the pass by some hours ; but the Khan, 
having two great advantages — namely, a strong body of 
infantry, who had been conveyed by sections of five on 
about two hundred camels, and some pieces of light 25 
artillery which he had not yet been forced to abandon — 
soon began to make a serious impression upon this 
unsupported detachment ; and they would probably at any 
rate have retired ; but, at the very moment when they 
were making some dispositions in that view, Zebek-Dorchi 30 
appeared upon their rear with a body of trained riflemen, 
who had distinguished themselves in the war with Turkey. 
These men had contrived to crawl unobserved over the 
cliffs which skirted the ravine, availing themselves of the 



38 ■ REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

dry beds of the summer torrents and other inequalities of 
the ground to conceal their movement. Disorder and 
trepidation ensued instantly in the Cossack files ; the 
Khan, who had been waiting with the elite of his heavy 

5 cavalry, charged furiously upon them. Total overthrow 
followed to the Cossacks, and a slaughter such as in some 
measure avenged the recent bloody extermination of their 
allies, the ancient oiiloss of Feka-Zechorr. The slight 
horses of the Cossacks were unable to support the weight 

lo of heavy Polish dragoons and a body of trained cameleers 
(that is, cuirassiers mounted on camels) ; hardy they were, 
but not strong, nor a match for their antagonists in weight; 
and their extraordinary efforts through the last few days 
to gain their present position had greatly diminished their 

15 powers for effecting an escape. Very few, in fact, did 
escape ; and the bloody day of Ouchim became as memo- 
rable among the Cossacks as that which, about twenty 
days before, had signalized the complete annihilation of 
the Feka-Zechorr.^ 

20 The road was now open to the River Igritch, and as yet 
even far beyond it to the Torgau ; but how long this 
state of things would continue was every day more 

1 There was another oiiloss equally strong with that of Feka- 
Zechorr, viz, that of Erketunn under the government of Assarcho 
and Machi, whom some obligations of treaty or other hidden motives 
drew into the general conspiracy of revolt. But fortunately the two 
chieftains found means to assure the Governor of Astrachan, on the 
first outbreak of the insurrection, that their real wishes were for 
maintaining the old connection with Russia. The Cossacks, there- 
fore, to whom the pursuit was intrusted, had instructions to act 
cautiously and according to circumstances on coming up with them. 
The result was, through the prudent management of Assarcho, that 
the clan, without compromising their pride or independence, made 
such moderate submissions as satisfied the Cossacks ; and eventually 
both chiefs and people received from the Czarina the rewards and 
honors of exemplary fidelity. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 39 

doubtful. Certain intelligence was now received that a 
large Russian army, well appointed in every arm, was 
advancing upon the Torgau under the command of 
General Traubenberg. This officer was to be joined on 
his route by ten thousand Bashkirs, and pretty nearly the 5 
same amount of Kirghises^ — ^ both hereditary enemies of 
the Kalmucks — both exasperated to a point of madness 
by the bloody trophies which Oubacha and Momotbacha 
had, in late years, won from such of their compatriots as 
served under the Sultan. The Czarina's yoke these wild 10 
nations bore with submissive patience, but not the hands 
by which it had been imposed ; and accordingly, catch- 
ing with eagerness at the present occasion offered to their 
vengeance, they sent an assurance to the Czarina of their 
perfect obedience to her commands, and at the same time 15 
a message significantly declaring in what spirit they meant 
to execute them — viz. " that they would not trouble her 
Majesty with prisoners." 

Here then arose, as before with the Cossacks, a race 
for the Kalmucks with the regular armies of Russia, and 20 
concurrently with nations as fierce and semi-humanized 
as themselves, besides that they were stung into threefold 
activity by the furies of mortified pride and military 
abasement, under the eyes of the Turkish Sultan. The 
forces, and more especially the artillery, of Russia were 25 
far too overwhelming to permit the thought of a regular 
opposition in pitched battles, even with a less dilapidated 
state of their resources than they could reasonably expect 
at the period of their arrival on the Torgau. In their 
speed lay their only hope — in strength of foot, as before, 3° 
and not in strength of arm. Onward, therefore, the Kal- 
mucks pressed, marking the lines of their wide-extending 
march over the sad solitudes of the steppes by a never- 
ending chain of corpses. The old and the young, the 



40 RKVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

sick man on liis coucli, the molhcr with her baby — all 
were left behind. Sights such as these, with the many 
rueful aggravations incident to the helpless condition of 
infancy — of disease and of female weakness abandoned 
5 to tlie wolves amidst a howling wilderness — continued to 
track their course through a space of full two thousand 
miles ; for so much at the least it was likely to prove, 
including the circuits to which they were often compelled 
by rivers or hostile tribes, from the point of starting on 

lo the Wolga until they could reach their destined halting 
ground on the east bank of the Torgau. For the first 
seven weeks of this march their sufferings had been im- 
bittered by the excessive severity of the cold ; and every 
night — so long as wood was to be had for fires, either 

15 from the lading of the camels, or from the desperate sacri- 
fice of their baggage wagons, or (as occasionally happened) 
from the forests which skirted the banks of the many 
rivers which crossed their path — no spectacle was more 
frequent than that of a circle, composed of men, women, 

20 and children, gathered by hundreds round a central fire, 
all dead and stiff at the return of morning light. Myriads 
were left behind from pure exhaustion, of whom none 
had a chance, under the combined evils which beset 
them, of surviving through the next twenty-four hours. 

25 Frost, however, and snow at length ceased to persecute ; 
the vast extent of the march at length brought them into 
more genial latitudes, and the unusual duration of the 
march was gradually bringing them into more genial 
seasons of the year. Two thousand miles had at least 

30 been traversed ; February, March, April, were gone ; the 
balmy month of May had opened ; vernal sights and 
sounds came from every side to comfort the heart-weary 
travellers ; and at last, in the latter end of May, crossing 
the Torgau, they took up a position where they hoped to 



KEi'oi/r or rill': rARiwrs. 41 

fiiul liberty to repose themselves for ni;iny weeks in eoin 
fort as well as in security, and to draw such sui)|)lics fioni 
the fertile neighborhood as nii<;ht restore their shattered 
forces to a condition for executing, with less of wreck and 
ruin, the large remainder of the journey. 5 

Yes ; it was true that two thousand miles of wandering 
had been comi^leted, but in a period of nearly five 
months, and with the terrific sacrifice of at least two hun- 
dred and fifty thousand souls, to say nothing of herds and 
Hocks past all reckoning. These had all perished : ox, 10 
cow, horse, mule, ass, sheep, or goat, not one survived— - 
only the camels. These arid and adust creatures, look- 
ing like the mummies of some antediluvian animals, with- 
out the affections or sensibilities of flesh and blood 
these only still erected their speaking eyes to the eastern 15 
heavens, and had to all appearance come out from this 
long tempest of trial unscathed and hardly diminished. 
The Khan, knowing how much he was individually 
answerable for the misery which had been sustained, 
must have wept tears even more bitter than those of 20 
Xerxes when he threw his eyes over the myriads whom 
he had assembled : for the tears of Xerxes were 
unmingled with compunction. Whatever amends were in 
his power, the Khan resolved to make, by sacrifices to 
the general good of all personal regards ; and, accordingly, 25 
even at this point of their advance, he once more delib- 
erately brought under review the whole question of the 
revolt. The question was formally debated before the 
(Council, whether, even at this point, they should untread 
their steps, and, throwing themselves upon the ('zarina's 30 
mercy, return to their old allegiance, in that case, 
Oubacha^ professed himself willing to become the scape- 
goat for the general transgression. This, he argued, was 
no fantastic scheme, but even easy of accomplishment; 



42 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

for the unlimited and sacred power of the Khan, so well 
known to the Empress, made it absolutely iniquitous to 
attribute any separate responsibility to the people. Upon 
the Khan rested the guilt — upon the Khan would 

5 descend the imperial vengeance. This proposal was 
applauded for its generosity, but was energetically op- 
posed by Zebek-Dorchi. Were they to lose the whole 
journey of two thousand miles ? Was their misery to 
perish without fruit ? True it was that they had yet 

lo reached only the halfway house ; but, in that respect, 
the motives were evenly balanced for retreat or for 
advance. Either way they would have pretty nearly 
the same distance to traverse, but with this difference — 
that, forwards, their route lay through lands compara- 

15 tively fertile ; backwards, through a blasted wilderness, 
rich only in memorials of their sorrow, and hideous to 
Kalmuck eyes by the trophies of their calamit)^ Besides, 
though the Empress might accept an excuse for the past, 
would she the less forbear to suspect for the future ? 

20 The Czarina's pardon they might obtain, but could they 
ever hope to recover her confidence 'l Doubtless there 
would now be a standing presumption against them, an 
immortal ground of jealousy ; and a jealous government 
would be but another name for a harsh one. Finally, 

25 whatever motives there ever had been for the revolt 
surely remained unimpaired by anything that had oc- 
curred. In reality the revolt was, after all, no revolt, 
but (strictly speaking) a return to their old allegiance ; 
since, not above one hundred and fifty years ago (viz. in 

30 the year 16 16), their ancestors had revolted from the 
Emperor of China. They had now tried both govern- 
ments ; and for them China was the land of promise, and 
Russia the house of bondage. 

Spite, however, of all that Zebek could say or do, the 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 43 

yearning of the people was strongly in behalf of the 
Khan's proposal ; the pardon of their prince, they per- 
suaded themselves, would be readily conceded by the 
Empress : and there is little doubt that they would at 
this time have thrown themselves gladly upon the imperial 5 
mercy ; when suddenly all was defeated by the arrival of 
two envoys from Traubenberg. This general had reached 
the fortress of Orsk, after a very painful march, on the 
12th of April ; thence he set forward toward Oriembourg, 
which he reached upon the ist of June, having been 10 
joined on his route at various times through the month 
of May by the Kirghises and a corps of ten thousand 
Bashkirs. From Oriembourg he sent forward his official 
offers to the Khan, which were harsh and peremptory, 
holding out no specific stipulations as to pardon or 15 
impunity, an exacting unconditional submission as the 
preliminary price of any cessation from military opera- 
tions. The personal character of Traubenberg, which 
was anything but energetic, and the condition of his 
army, disorganized in a great measure by the length and 20 
severity of the march, made it probable that, with a little 
time for negotiation, a more conciliatory tone would have 
been assumed. But, unhappily for all parties, sinister 
events occurred in the meantime such as effectually put 
an end to every hope of the kind. 25 

The two envoys sent forward by Traubenberg had 
reported to this officer that a distance of only ten days' 
march lay between his own headquarters and those of 
the Khan, Upon this fact transpiring, the Kirghises, by 
their prince Nourali, and the Bashkirs, entreated the 30 
Russian general to advance without delay. Once having 
placed his cannon in position, so as to command the 
Kalmuck camp, the fate of the rebel Khan and his 
people would be in his own hands, and they would 



44 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

themselves form his advanced guard. Traubenberg, how 
ever {why has not been certainly explained), refused t( 
march ; grounding his refusal upon the condition of hi; 
army and their absolute need of refreshment. Lon^ 
5 and fierce was the altercation ; but at length, seeing nc 
chance of prevailing, and dreading above all other event; 
the escape of their detested enemy, the ferocious Bash 
kirs went off in a body by forced marches. In six day; 
they reached the Torgau, crossed by swimming thei] 

lo horses, and fell upon the Kalmucks, who were dispersec 
for many a league in search of food or provender foi 
their camels. The first day's action was one vast sue 
cession of independent skirmishes, diffused over a fielc 
of thirty to forty miles in extent ; one party often break 

15 ing up into three or four, and again (according to th( 
accidents of ground) three or four blending into one 
flight and pursuit, rescue and total overthrow, going or 
simultaneously, under all varieties of form, in all quarters 
of the plain. The Bashkirs had found themselves obliged, 

20 by the scattered state of the Kalmucks, to split up intc 
innumerable sections ; and thus, for some hours, it had 
been impossible for the most practised eye to collect the 
general tendency of the day's fortune. Both the Khan 
and Zebek-Dorchi were at one moment made prisoners, 

25 and more than once in imminent danger of being cut 
down ; but at length Zebek succeeded in rallying a 
strong column of infantry, which, with the support of the 
camel corps on each flank, compelled the Bashkirs to 
retreat. Clouds, however, of these wild cavalry continued 

30 to arrive through the next two days and nights,, followed 
or accompanied by the Kirghises. These being viewed 
as the advanced parties of Traubenberg's army, the 
Kalmuck chieftains saw no hope of safety but in flight ; 
and in this way it happened that a retreat, which had so 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 45 

recently been brought to a pause, was resumed at the 
very moment when the unhappy fugitives were anticipat- 
ing a deep repose, without further molestation, the whole 
summer through. 

It seemed as though every variety of wretchedness 5 
were predestined to the Kalmucks, and as if their suffer- 
ings were incomplete unless they were rounded and 
matured by all that the most dreadful agencies of sum- 
mer's heat could superadd to those of frost and winter. 
To this sequel of their story we shall immediately revert, 10 
after first noticing a little romantic episode which occurred 
at this point between Oubacha and his unprincipled 
cousin, Zebek-Dorchi. 

There was, at the time of the Kalmuck flight from the 
Wolga, a Russian gentleman of some rank at the court 15 
of the Khan, whom, for political reasons, it was thought 
necessary to carry along with them as a captive. For 
some weeks his confinement had been very strict, and in 
one or two instances cruel ; but, as the increasing dis- 
tance was continually diminishing the chances of escape, 20 
and perhaps, also, as the misery of the guards gradually 
withdrew their attention from all minor interests to their 
own personal sufferings, the vigilance of the custody 
grew more and more relaxed ; until at length, upon a 
petition to the Khan, Mr. Weseloff was formally restored 25 
to liberty ; and it was understood that he might use his 
liberty in whatever way he chose; even for returning 
to Russia, if that should be his wish. Accordingly, he 
was making active preparations for his journey to St. 
Petersburg, when it occurred to Zebek-Dorchi that not 30 
improbably, in some of the battles which were then antici- 
pated with Traubenberg, it might happen to them to 
lose some prisoner of rank, • — in which case the Russian 
Weseloff would be a pledge in their hands for negotiating 



46 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

an exchange. Upon this plea, to his own severe afflic- 
tion, the Russian was detained until the further pleasure 
of the Khan. The Khan's name, indeed, was used 
through the whole affair, but, as it seemed, with so little 

5 concurrence on his part, that, when Weseloff in a private 
audience humbly remonstrated upon the injustice done 
him and the cruelty of thus sporting with his feelings by 
setting him at liberty, and, as it were, tempting him into 
dreams of home and restored happiness only for the pur- 

10 pose of blighting them, the good-natured prince dis- 
claimed all participation in the affair, and went so far in 
proving his sincerity as even to give him permission to 
effect his escape ; and, as a ready means of commencing 
it without raising suspicion, the Khan mentioned to Mr. 

15 Weseloff that he had just then received a message from 
the Hetman of the Bashkirs, soliciting a private interview 
on the banks of the Torgau at a spot pointed out. That 
interview was arranged for the coming night ; and Mr. 
Weseloff might go in the Khan's suite^ which on either 

20 side was not to exceed three persons. Weseloff was a 
prudent man, acquainted with the world, and he read 
treachery in the very outline of this scheme, as stated by 
the Khan — treachery against the Khan's person. He 
mused a little, and then communicated so much of his 

25 suspicions to the Khan as might put him on his guard ; 
but, upon further consideration, he begged leave to 
decline the honor of accompanying the Khan. The fact 
was that three Kalmucks, who had strong motives for 
returning to their countrymen on the west bank of the 

30 Wolga, guessing the intentions of Weseloff, had offered 
to join him in his escape. These men the Khan would 
probably find himself obliged to countenance in their 
project, so that it became a point of honor with Weseloff 
to conceal their intentions, and therefore to accomplish 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 47 

the evasion from the camp (of which the first steps only 
would be hazardous) without risking the notice of the 
Khan. 

The district in which they were now encamped 
abounded through many hundred miles with wild horses 5 
of a docile and beautiful breed. Each of the four fugi- 
tives had caught from seven to ten of these spirited 
creatures in the course of the last few days. This 
raised no suspicion, for the rest of the Kalmucks had 
been making the same sort of provision against the com- 10 
ing toils of their remaining route to China. These horses 
were secured by halters, and hidden about dusk in the 
thickets which lined the margin of the river. To these 
thickets, about ten at night, the four fugitives repaired. 
They took a circuitous path, which drew them as little as 15 
possible within danger of challenge from any of the out- 
posts or of the patrols which had been established on the 
quarters where the Bashkirs lay ; and in three-quarters of 
an hour they reached the rendezvous. The moon had 
now risen, the horses were unfastened ; and they were 20 
in the act of mounting, when the deep silence of the 
woods was disturbed by a violent uproar and the clash- 
ing of arms. Weseloff fancied that he heard the voice of 
the Khan shouting for assistance. He remembered the 
communication made by that prince in the morning ; and, 25 
requesting his companions to support him, he rode off in 
the direction of the sound. A very short distance brought 
him to an open glade in the wood, where he beheld four 
men contending with a party of at least nine or ten. 
Two of the four were dismounted at the very instant of 30 
Weseloff's arrival. One of these he recognized almost 
certainly as the Khan, who was fighting hand to hand, 
but at great disadvantage, with two of the adverse horse- 
men. Seeing that no time was to be lost, Weseloff fired 



48 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

and brought down one of the two. His companions dis- 
charged their carabines at the same moment ; and then 
all rushed simultaneously into the little open area. The 
thundering sound of about thirty horses, all rushing at 
5 once into a narrow space, gave the impression that a 
whole troop of cavalry was coming down upon the assail- 
ants, who accordingly wheeled about and fled with one 
impulse. Weseloff advanced to the dismounted cavalier, 
who, as he expected, proved to be the Khan. The man 

10 whom Weseloff had shot was lying dead ; and both were 
shocked, though Weseloff at least was not surprised, on 
stooping down and scrutinizing his features, to recog- 
nize a well-known confidential servant of Zebek-Dorchi. 
Nothing was said by either party. The Khan rode off, 

15 escorted by Weseloff and his companions; and for some 
time a dead silence prevailed. The situation of Weseloff 
was delicate and critical. To leave the Khan at this point 
was probably to cancel their recent services ; for he might 
be again crossed on his path, and again attacked, by the 

20 very party from whom he had just been delivered. Yet, on 
the other hand, to return to the camp was to endanger the 
chances of accomplishing the escape. The Khan, also, was 
apparently revolving all this in his mind ; for at length he 
broke silence and said: "I comprehend your situation; 

25 and, under other circumstances, I might feel it my duty to 
detain your companions, but it would ill become me to do 
so after the important service you have just rendered me. 
Let us turn a little to the left. There, where you see the 
watch fire, is an outpost. Attend me so far. I am then 

30 safe. You may turn and pursue your enterprise ; for 
the circumstances under which you wdll appear as my 
escort are sulBcient to shield you from all suspicion for 
the present. I regret having no better means at my dis- 
posal for testifying my gratitud^ But tell me before we 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 49 

part — was it accident only which led you to my rescue ? 
Or had you acquired any knowledge of the plot by which 
I was decoyed into this snare ? " Weseloff answered very 
candidly that mere accident had brought him to the spot 
at which he heard the uproar ; but that, having heard it, 5 
and connecting it with the Khan's communication of the 
morning, he had then designedly gone after the sound in 
a way which he certainly should not have done, at so 
critical a moment, unless in the expectation of finding 
the Khan assaulted by assassins. A few minutes after 10 
they reached the outpost at which it became safe to 
leave the Tartar chieftain ; and immediately the four 
fugitives commenced a flight which is, perhaps, without a 
parallel in the annals of travelling. Each of them led 
six or seven horses besides the one he rode; and by 15 
shifting from one to the other (like the ancient Desultors 
of the Roman circus), so as never to burden the same 
horse for more than half an hour at a time, they con- 
tinued to advance at the rate of 200 miles in the twenty- 
four hours for three days consecutively. After that time, 20 
considering themselves beyond pursuit, they proceeded 
less rapidly ; though still with a velocity which staggered 
the belief of Weseloff's friends in after years. He was, 
however, a man of high principle, and always adhered 
firmly to the details of his printed report. One of the 25 
circumstances there stated is that they continued to pur- 
sue the route by which the Kalmucks had fled, never for 
an instant finding any difficulty in tracing it by the skele- 
tons and other memorials of their calamities. In par- 
ticular, he mentions vast heaps of money as part of the 30 
valuable property which it had been necessary to sacri- 
fice. These heaps were found lying still untouched in 
the deserts. From these Weseloff and his companions 
took as much as they could conveniently carry ; and this 



50 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

it was, with tlie price of their beautiful horses, whicli they 
afterward sold at one of the Russian military settlements 
for about ^15 apiece, which eventually enabled them to 
pursue their journey in Russia. This journey, as regarded 
5 Weseloif in particular, was closed by a tragical catas- 
trophe. He was at that time young and the only child 
of a doting mother. Her affliction under the violent ab- 
duction of her son had been excessive, and probably had 
undermined her constitution. Still she had supported it. 

10 Weseloff, giving way to the natural impulses of his filial 
affection, had imprudently posted through Russia to his 
mother's house without warning of his approach. He 
rushed precipitately into her presence ; and she, who had 
stood the shocks of sorrow, was found unequal to the 

15 shock of joy too sudden and too acute. She died upon 
the spot. 

We now revert to the final scenes of the Kalmuck 
flight. These it would be useless to pursue circumstan- 
tially through the whole two thousand miles of suffering 

20 which remained ; for the character of that suffering was 
even more monotonous than on the former half of the 
flight, but also more severe. Its main elements were 
excessive heat, with the accompaniments of famine and 
thirst, but aggravated at every step by the murderous 

25 attacks of their cruel enemies, the Bashkirs and the 
Kirghises. 

These people, " more fell than anguish, hunger, or 
the sea," stuck to the unhappy Kalmucks like a swarm 
of enraged hornets. And very often, while they were 

30 attacking them in the rear, their advanced parties and 
flanks were attacked with almost equal fury by the people 
of the country which they were traversing ; and with good 
reason, since the law of self-preservation had now obliged 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 51 

the fugitive Tartars to plunder provisions and to forage 
wherever they passed. In this respect their condition 
was a constant oscillation of wretchedness ; for some- 
times, pressed by grinding famine, they took a circuit of 
perhaps a hundred miles, in order to strike into a land 5 
rich in the comforts of life ; but in such a land they were 
sure to find a crowded population, of which every arm 
was raised in unrelenting hostility, with all the advantages 
of local knowledge, and with constant preoccupation of 
all the defensible positions, mountain passes, or bridges. 10 
Sometimes, again, wearied out with this mode of suffer- 
ing, they took a circuit of perhaps a hundred miles, in 
order to strike into a land with few or no inhabitants. 
But in such a land they were sure to meet absolute 
starvation. Then, again, whether with or without this 15 
plague of starvation, whether with or without this plague 
of hostility in front, whatever might be the " fierce vari- 
eties " of their misery in this respect, no rest ever came 
to their unhappy rear ; post cqiiite?n sedei atra cura: it 
was a torment like the undying worm of conscience. 20 
And, upon the whole, it presented a spectacle altogether 
unprecedented in the history of mankind. Private and 
personal malignity is not unfrequently immortal ; but rare 
indeed is it to find the same pertinacity of malice in 
a nation. And what imbittered the interest was that the 25 
malice was reciprocal. Thus far the parties met upon 
equal terms ; but that equality only sharpened the sense 
of their dire inequality as to other circumstances. The 
Bashkirs were ready to fight "from morn till dewy eve." 
The Kalmucks, on the . contrary, were always obliged to 30 
run. Was it from their enemies as creatures whom they 
feared?. No; but towards their friends — towards that 
final haven of China — as what was hourly implored by 
the prayers of their wives and the tears of their children. 



52 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

But, though they fled unwillingly, too often they fled in 
vain — being unwillingly recalled. There lay the tor- 
ment. Every day the Bashkirs fell upon them ; every 
day the same unprofitable battle was renewed ; as a 
5 matter of course, the Kalmucks recalled part of their 
advanced guard to fight them ; every day the battle raged 
for hours, and uniformly with the same result. For, no 
sooner did the Bashkirs find themselves too heavily 
pressed, and that the Kalmuck march had been retarded 

10 by some hours, than they retired into the boundless 
deserts, where all pursuit was hopeless. But if the Kal- 
mucks resolved to press forwards, regardless of their ene- 
mies — in that case their attacks became so fierce and 
overwhelming that the general safety seemed likely to be 

15 brought into question ; nor could any effectual remedy 
be applied to the case, even for each separate day, ex- 
cept by a most embarrassing halt and by countermarches 
that, to men in their circumstances, were almost worse 
than death. It will not be surprising that the irritation 

20 of such a systematic persecution, superadded to a previ- 
ous and hereditary hatred, and accompanied by the 
stinging consciousness of utter impotence as regarded all 
effectual vengeance, should gradually have inflamed the 
Kalmuck animosity into the wildest expression of down- 

25 right madness and frenzy. Indeed, long before the 
frontiers of China were approached, the hostility of both 
sides had assumed the appearance much more of a 
warfare amongst wild beasts than amongst creatures 
acknowledging the restraints of reason or the claims of a 

30 common nature. The spectacle became too atrocious ; it 
was that of a host of lunatics pursued by a host of fiends. 



On a fine morning in early autumn of the year 1771, 
Kien Long, the Emperor of China, was pursuing his 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 53 

amusements in a wild frontier district lying on the out- 
side of the Great Wall. For many hundred square 
leagues the country was desolate of inhabitants, but rich 
in woods of ancient growth, and overrun with game of 
every description. In a central spot of this solitary ^ 
region the Emperor had built a gorgeous hunting lodge, 
to which he resorted annually for recreation and relief 
from the cares of government. Led onwards in pursuit 
of game, he had rambled to a distance of 200 miles or 
more from his lodge, followed at a little distance by a 10 
sufficient military escort, and every night pitching his 
tent in a different situation, until at length he had arrived 
on the very margin of the vast central deserts of Asia.^ 
Here he was standing by accident, at an opening of his 
pavilion, enjoying the morning sunshine, when suddenly 15 
to the westward there arose a vast, cloudy vapor, which 
by degrees expanded, mounted, and seemed to be slowly 
diffusing itself over the whole face of the heavens. By 
and by this vast sheet of mist began to thicken toward 
the horizon and to roll forward in billowy volumes. The 20 
Emperor's suite assembled from all quarters ; the silver 
trumpets were sounded in the rear ; and from all the 
glades and forest avenues began to trot forwards towards 
the pavilion the yagers — half cavalry, half huntsmen — 
who composed the imperial escort. Conjecture was on 25 
the stretch to divine the cause of this phenomenon ; and 
the interest continually increased in proportion as simple 
curiosity gradually deepened into the anxiety of uncertain 
danger. At first it had been imagined that some vast 

1 All the circumstances are learned from a long state paper on the 
subject of this Kalmuck migration drawn up in the Chinese language 
by the Emperor himself. Parts of this paper have been translated by 
the Jesuit missionaries. The Emperor states the whole motives of 
his conduct and the chief incidents at great length. 



54 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

troops of deer or other wild animals of the chase had 
been disturbed in their forest haunts by the Emperor's 
movements, or possibly by wild beasts prowling for prey, 
and might be fetching a compass by way of re-entering 
5 the forest grounds at some remoter points, secure from 
molestation. But this conjecture was dissipated by the 
slow increase of the cloud and the steadiness of its 
motion. In the course of two hours the vast phenome- 
non had advanced to a point which was judged to be 

lo within five miles of the spectators, though all calcula- 
tions of distance were difficult, and often fallacious, when 
applied to the endless expanses of the Tartar deserts. 
Through the next hour, during which the gentle morning 
breeze had a little freshened, the dusty vapor had devel- 

15 oped itself far and wide into the appearance of huge 
aerial draperies, hanging in mighty volumes from the sky 
to the earth ; and at particular points, where the eddies 
of the breeze acted upon the pendulous skirts of these 
aerial curtains, rents were perceived, sometimes taking the 

20 form of regular arches, portals, and windows, through 
which began dimly to gleam the heads of camels " in- 
dorsed " ^ with human beings, and at intervals the moving 
of men and horses in tumultuous array, and then through 
other openings, or vistas, at far-distant points, the flash- 

25 ing of polished arms. But sometimes, as the wind slack- 
ened or died away, all those openings, of whatever form, 
in the cloudy pall, would slowly close, and for a time the 
whole pageant was shut up from view ; although the 
growing din, the clamors, the shrieks, and groans ascend- 

30 ing from infuriated myriads, reported, in a language not 
to be misunderstood, what was going on behind the 
cloudy screen. 

1 Camels '■'■indorsed'''' "and elephants indorsed with towers." — 
Milton in Paradise Regained, 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 55 

It was, in fact, the Kalmuck host, now in the last 
extremities of their exhaustion, and very fast approaching 
to that final stage of privation and killing misery beyond 
which few or none could have lived, but also, happily for 
themselves, fast approaching (in a literal sense) that final 5 
stage of their long pilgrimage at which they would meet 
hospitality on a scale of royal magnificence and full pro- 
tection from their enemies. These enemies, however, as 
yet, still were hanging on their rear as fiercely as ever, 
though this day was destined to be the last of their hid- 10 
eous persecution. The Khan had, in fact, sent forward 
couriers with all the requisite statements and petitions, 
addressed to the Emperor of China. These had been 
duly received, and preparations made in consequence to 
welcome the Kalmucks with the most paternal benevo- 15 
lence. But as these couriers had been dispatched from 
the Torgau at the moment of arrival thither, and before 
the advance of Traubenberg had made it necessary 
for the Khan to order a hasty renewal of the flight, the 
Emperor had not looked for their arrival on his frontiers 20 
until full three months after the present time. The Khan 
had, indeed, expressly notified his intention to pass the 
summer heats on the banks of the Torgau, and to recom- 
mence his retreat about the beginning of September. The 
subsequent change of plan being unknown to Kien Long, 25 
left him for some time in doubt as to the true interpreta- 
tion to be put upon this mighty apparition in the desert : 
but at length the savage clamors of hostile fury and 
clangor of weapons unveiled to the Emperor the true 
nature of those unexpected calamities which had so pre- 30 
maturely precipitated the Kalmuck measure. 

Apprehending the real state of affairs, the Emperor 
instantly perceived that the first act of his fatherly care 
for these erring children (as he esteemed them), now 



56 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

returning to their ancient obedience, must be — to deliver 
them from their pursuers. And this was less difficult 
than might have been supposed. Not many miles in the 
rear was a body of well-appointed cavalry, with a strong 
5 detachment of artillery, who always attended the Em- 
peror's motions. These were hastily summoned. Mean- 
time it occurred to the train of courtiers that some danger 
might arise to the Emperor's person from the proximity 
of a lawless enemy, and accordingly he was induced to 

lo retire a little to the rear. It soon appeared, however, to 
those who watched the vapory shroud in the desert, that 
its motion was not such as would argue the direction of 
the march to be exactly upon the pavilion, but rather in 
a diagonal line, making an angle of full 45 degrees with 

15 that line in which the imperial cortege had been standing, 
and therefore with a distance continually increasing. 
Those who knew the country judged that the Kalmucks 
were making for a large fresh-water lake about seven or 
eight miles distant. They were right ; and to that point 

20 the imperial cavalry was ordered up ; and it was precisely 
in that spot, and about three hours after, and at noonday 
on the 8th of September, that the great Exodus of the 
Kalmuck Tartars was brought to a final close, and with a 
scene of such memorable and hellish fury as formed an 

25 appropriate winding up to an expedition in all its parts 
and details so awfully disastrous. The Emperor was not 
personally present, or at least he saw whatever he did s^e 
from too great a distance to discriminate its individual 
features ; but he records in his written memorial the 

30 report made to him of this scene by some of his own 
officers. 

The Lake of Tengis, near the frightful Desert of Kobi, 
lay in a hollow amongst hills of a moderate height, ranging 
generally from two to three thousand feet high. About 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 57 

eleven o'clock in the forenoon, the Chinese cavalry 
reached the summit of a road which led through a cradle- 
like dip in the mountains right down upon the margin of 
the lake. From this pass, elevated about two thousand 
feet above the level of the water, they continued to 5 
descend, by a very winding and difficult road, for an hour 
and a half ; and during the whole of this descent they were 
compelled to be inactive spectators of the fiendish spec- 
tacle below. The Kalmucks, reduced by this time from 
about six hundred thousand souls to two hundred and 10 
sixty thousand, and after enduring for two months and a 
half the miseries we have previously described — outra- 
geous heat, famine, and the destroying scimiter of the 
Kirghises and the Bashkirs — had for the last ten days 
been traversing a hideous desert, where no vestiges were 15 
seen of vegetation, and no drop of water could be found. 
Camels and men were already so overladen that it was a 
mere impossibility that they should carry a tolerable suffi- 
ciency for the passage of this frightful wilderness. On 
the eighth day the wretched daily allowance, which had 20 
been continually diminishing, failed entirely; and thus, for 
two days of insupportable fatigue, the horrors of thirst 
had been carried to the fiercest extremity. Upon this 
last morning, at the sight of the hills and the forest 
scenery, which announced to those who acted as guides 25 
the neighborhood of the Lake of Tengis, all the people 
rushed along with maddening eagerness to the anticipated 
solace. The day grew hotter and hotter, the people more 
and more exhausted ; and gradually, in the general rush 
forward to the lake, all discipline and command were lost 30 

— all attempts to preserve a rear guard were neglected 

— the wild Bashkirs rode on amongst the encumbered 
people and slaughtered them by wholesale, and almost 
without resistance. Screams and tumultuous shouts pro- 



58 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

claimed the progress of the massacre; but none heeded — 
none halted ; all alike, pauper or noble, continued to rush 
on with maniacal haste to the waters — all with faces 
blackened by the heat preying upon the liver and with 
5 tongue drooping from the mouth. The cruel Bashkir was 
affected by the same misery, and manifested the same 
symptoms of his misery, as the wretched Kalmuck ; the 
murderer was oftentimes in the same frantic misery as his 
murdered victim — many, indeed (an ordinary effect of 

lo thirst), in both nations had become lunatic, and in this 
state, whilst mere multitude and condensation of bodies 
alone opposed any check to the destroying scimiter and 
the trampling hoof, the lake was reached ; and to that 
the whole vast body of enemies rushed, and together 

IS continued to rush, forgetful of all things at that moment 
but of one almighty instinct. This absorption of the 
thoughts in one maddening appetite lasted for a single 
half hour ; but in the next arose the final scene of parting 
vengeance. Far and wide the waters of the solitary lake 

20 were instantly dyed red with blood and gore : here rode a 
party of savage Bashkirs, hewing off heads as fast as the 
swaths fall before the mower's scythe ; there stood unarmed 
Kalmucks in a death grapple with their detested foes, 
both up to the middle in water, and oftentimes both sink- 

25 ing together below the surface, from weakness or from 
struggles, and perishing in each other's arms. Did the 
Bashkirs at any point collect into a cluster for the sake 
of giving impetus to the assault ? Thither were the camels 
driven in fiercely by those who rode them, generally 

3° women or boys ; and even these quiet creatures were 
forced into a share in this carnival of murder by tram- 
pling down as many as they could strike prostrate with the 
lash of their fore-legs. Every moment the water grew 
more polluted ; and yet every moment fresh myriads came 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 59 

up to the lake and 'rushed in, not able to resist their 
frantic thirst, and swallowing large draughts of water, 
visibly contaminated with the blood of their slaughtered 
compatriots. Wheresoever the lake was shallow enough 
to allow of men raising their heads above the water, there, 5 
for scores of acres, were to be seen all forms of ghastly 
fear, of agonizing struggle, of spasm, of death, and the 
fear of death — revenge, and the lunacy of revenge — 
until the neutral spectators, of whom there were not a 
few, now descending the eastern side of the lake, at length 10 
averted their eyes in horror. This horror, which seemed 
incapable of further addition, was, however, increased 
by an unexpected incident. The Bashkirs, beginning to 
perceive here and there the approach of the Chinese 
cavalry, felt it prudent — wheresoever they were suffi- 15 
ciently at leisure from the passions of the murderous 
scene — to gather into bodies. This was noticed by the 
governor of a small Chinese fort built upon an eminence 
above the lake ; and immediately he threw in a broadside, 
which spread havoc among the Bashkir tribe. As often 20 
as the Bashkirs collected into globes and turins as their 
only means of meeting the long line of descending 
Chinese cavalry, so often did the Chinese governor of the 
fort pour in his exterminating broadside ; until at length 
the lake, at its lower end, became one vast seething 25 
caldron of human bloodshed and carnage. The Chinese 
cavalry had reached the foot of the hills ; the Bashkirs, 
attentive to their movements, had formed ; skirmishes had 
been fought ; and, with a quick sense that the contest was 
henceforward rapidly becoming hopeless, the Bashkirs 3° 
and Kirghises began to retire. The pursuit was not as 
vigorous as the Kalmuck hatred would have desired. 
But, at "the same time, the very gloomiest hatred could 
not but find, in their own dreadful experience of the 



60 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

Asiatic deserts, ?nd in the certainty that these wretched 
Bashkirs had to repeat that same experience a second 
time, for thousands of miles, as the price exacted by a 
retributary Providence for their vindictive cruelty — not 
5 the very gloomiest of the Kalmucks, or the least reflecting, 
but found in all this a retaliatory chastisement more 
complete and absolute than any which their swords and 
lances could have obtained or human vengeance could 
have devised. 

10 Here ends the tale of the Kalmuck wanderings in the 
Desert ; for any subsequent marches which awaited them 
were neither long nor painful. Every possible alleviation 
and refreshment for their exhausted bodies had been 
already provided by Kien Long with the most princely 

15 munificence; and lands of great fertility were immediately 
assigned to them in ample extent along the River Ily, not 
very far from the point at which they had first emerged 
from the wilderness of Kobi. But the beneficent attention 
of the Chinese Emperor may be best stated in his own 

20 words, as translated into French by one of the Jesuit 
missionaries : " La nation des Torgotes (savoir ks Kal- 
miiques) arriva a Ily, toute delabree, n'ayant ni de quoi 
vivre, ni de quoi se vetir. Je I'avais pre'vu ; et j 'avals 
ordonne de faire en tout genre les provisions necessaires 

25 pour pouvoir les secourir promptement : c'est ce qui a ete 
execute. On a fait la division des terres: et on a assigne 
a chaque famille une portion suffisante pour pouvoir servir 
a son entretien, soit en la cultivant, soit en y nourissant 
des bestiaux. On a donne a chaque particulier des etoffes 

30 pour I'habiller, des grains pour se nourrir pendant I'espace 
d'une annee, des ustensiles pour le menage et d'autres 
choses necessaires : et outre cela plusieurs onces d'argent, 
pour se pourvoir de ce qu'on aurait pu oublier. On a 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 61 

designe des lieux particuliers, fertiles en paturages; et on 
leur a donne des boeufs, moutons, etc., pour qu'ils pussent 
dans la suite travailler par eux-memes a leur entretien et 
a leur bien-etre." 

These are the words of the Emperor himself, speaking 5 
in his own person of his own paternal cares ; but another 
Chinese, treating the same subject, records the munifi- 
cence of this prince in terms which proclaim still more 
forcibly the disinterested generosity which prompted, and 
the delicate considerateness which conducted, this exten- 10 
sive bounty. He has been speaking of the Kalmucks, 
and he goes on thus: — "Lorsqu'ils arriverent sur nos 
frontieres (au nombre de plusieurs centaines de mille, 
quoique la fatigue extreme, la faim, la soif, et toutes les 
autres incommodites inseparables d'une tres-longue et 15 
tres-penible route en eussent fait perir presque autant), 
ils etaient reduits a la derniere misere ; ils manquaient 
de tout. II " (viz. I'empereur, Kien Long) " leur fit pre- 
parer des logemens conform.es a leur maniere de vivre; 
il leur fit distribuer des alimens et des habits ; il leur fit 20 
donner des boeufs, des moutons, et des ustensiles, pour 
les mettre en etat de former des troupeaux et de cultiver 
la terre, et tout cela a ses propres frais, qui se sont 
montes a des sommes immenses, sans compter I'argent 
qu'il a donne a chaque chef-de-famille, pour pouvoir a la 25 
subsistance de sa femme et de ses enfans." 

Thus, after their memorable year of misery, the Kal- 
mucks were replaced in territorial possessions, and in 
comfort equal, perhaps, or even superior, to that which 
they had enjoyed in Russia, and with superior political 30 
advantages. But, if equal or superior, their condition 
was no longer the same ; if not in degree, their social 
prosperity had altered in quality ; for, instead of being a 
purely pastoral and vagrant people, they were now in 



62 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

circumstances which obliged them to become essentially 
dependent upon agriculture ; and thus far raised in social 
rank that, by the natural course of their habits and the 
necessities of life, they were effectually reclaimed from 

S roving and from the savage customs connected with a half 
nomadic life. They gained also in political privileges, 
chiefly through the immunity from military service which 
their new relations enabled them to obtain. These were 
circumstances of advantage and gain. But one great 

lo disadvantage there was, amply to overbalance all other 
possible gain : the chances were lost, or were removed to 
an incalculable distance, for their conversion to Chris- 
tianity, without which in these times there is no absolute 
advance possible on the path of true civilization. 

15 One word remains to be said upon the /^-''J"^;z<^/ interests 
concerned in this great drama. The catastrophe in this 
respect was remarkable and complete. Oubacha, with all 
his goodness and incapacity of suspecting, had, since the 
mysterious affair on the banks of the Torgau, felt his 

20 mind alienated from his cousin ; he revolted from the man 
that would have murdered him ; and he had displayed his 
caution so visibly as to provoke a reaction in the bearing 
of Zebek-Dorchi and a displeasure which all his dissimu- 
lation could not hide. This had produced a feud, which, 

25 by keeping them aloof, had probably saved the life of 
Oubacha ; for the friendship of Zebek-Dorchi was more 
fatal than his open enmity. After the settlement on the 
Ily this feud continued to advance, until it came under 
the notice of the Emperor, on occasion of a visit which 

30 all the Tartar chieftains made to his Majesty at his hunt- 
ing lodge in 1772. The Emperor informed himself accu- 
rately of all the particulars connected with the transaction 
— of all the rights and claims put forward — and of the 
way in which they would severally affect the interests of 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 63 

the Kalmuck people. The consequence was that he 
adopted the cause of Oubacha, and repressed the pre- 
tensions of Zebek-Dorchi, who, on his part, so deeply 
resented this discountenance to his ambitious projects 
that, in conjunction with other chiefs, he had the presump- 5 
tion even to weave nets of treason against the Emperor 
himself. Plots were laid, were detected, were baffled; 
counter-plots were constructed upon the same basis, 
and with the benefit of the opportunities thus offered. 
Finally, Zebek-Dorchi was invited to the imperial lodge, 10 
together with all his accomplices; and, under the skilful 
management of the Chinese nobles in the Emperor's 
establishment, the murderous artifices of these Tartar 
chieftains were made to recoil upon themselves, and the 
whole of them perished by assassination at a great im- 15 
perial banquet. For the Chinese morality is exactly of 
that kind which approves in everything the lex talmiis : 

"... Lex nee justior uUa est [as they think] 
Quam necis artifices arte perire sua." 

So perished Zebek-Dorchi, the author and originator of 20 
the great Tartar Exodus. Oubacha, meantime, and his 
people were gradually recovering from the effects of their 
misery, and repairing their losses. Peace and prosperity, 
under the gentle rule of a fatherly lord paramount, 
redawned upon the tribes : their household la7'es, after so 25 
harsh a translation to distant climates, found again a 
happy reinstatement in what had, in fact, been their 
primitive abodes : they found themselves settled in quiet 
sylvan scenes, rich in all the luxuries of life, and endowed 
with the perfect loveliness of Arcadian beauty. But from 30 
the hills of this favored land, and even from the level 
grounds as they approach its western border, they still 
look out upon that fearful wilderness which once beheld 



64 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

a nation in agony — the utter extirpation of nearly half a 
million from amongst its numbers, and for the remainder 
a storm of misery so fierce that in the end (as happened 
also at Athens during the Peloponnesian war from a dif- 
5 ferent form of misery) very many lost their memory ; all 
records of their past life were wiped out as with a sponge 
— utterly erased and cancelled: and many others lost 
their reason ; some in a gentle form of pensive melan- 
choly, some in a more restless form of feverish delirium 

10 and nervous agitation, and others in the fixed forms of 
tempestuous mania, raving frenzy, or moping idiocy. 
Two great commemorative monuments arose in after 
years to mark the depth and permanence of the awe — 
the sacred and reverential grief, with which all persons 

15 looked back upon the dread calamities attached to the 
year of the tiger — all who had either personally shared 
in those calamities and had themselves drunk from that 
cup of sorrow, or who had effectually been made witnesses 
to their results and associated with their relief : two great 

20 monuments ; one embodied in the religious solemnity, 
enjoined by the Dalai-Lama, called in the Tartar language 
a Romanang — that is, a national commemoration, with 
music the most rich and solemn, of all the souls who 
departed to the rest of Paradise from the afflictions of the 

25 Desert (this took place about six years after the arrival 
in China); secondly, another, more durable, and more 
commensurate to the scale of the calamity and to the 
grandeur of this national Exodus, in the mighty columns 
of granite and brass erected by the Emperor, Kien Long, 

30 near the banks of the Ily. These columns stand upon 
the very margin of the steppes, and they bear a short but 
emphatic inscription ^ to the following effect : — 

1 This inscription has been slightly altered in one or two phrases, 
and particularly in adapting to the Christian era the Emperor's 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 65 

By the Will of God, 
Here, upon the Brink of these Deserts, 
Which from this point begin and stretch away, 
Pathless, treeless, waterless, 
For thousands of miles, and along the margins of many mighty 
Nations, 
Rested from their labors and from great afflictions 
Under the shadow of the Chinese Wall, 
And by the favor of KiEN Long, God's Lieutenant upon Earth, 
The ancient Children of the Wilderness — the Torgote Tartars — 

Flying before the wrath of the Grecian Czar, 

Wandering Sheep who had strayed away from the Celestial Empire 

in the year 1616, 

But are now mercifully gathered again, after infinite sorrow. 

Into the fold of their forgiving Shepherd. 

Hallowed be the spot forever, 

and 

Hallowed be the day — September 8, 1771! 

Amen. 

expressions for the year of the original Exodus from China and the 
retrogressive Exodus from Russia. With respect to the designation 
adopted for the Russian Emperor, either it is built upon some con- 
fusion between him and the Byzantine Caesars, as though the former, 
being of the same religion with the latter (and occupying in part the 
same longitudes, though in different latitudes), might be considered 
as his modern successor ; or else it refers simply to the Greek form 
of Christianity professed by the Russian Emperor and Church. 



NOTES 



NOTES. 



THE ORIGINAL SOURCES. 

In Professor Masson's edition of De Quincey, Vol. VII, p. 8, is the 
following discussion of the author's original sources : 

" A word or two on De Quincey's authorities for his splendid sketch 
called The Revolt of the Tartars: — One authority was a famous 
Chinese state-paper purporting to have been composed by the Chinese 
Emperor, Kien Eong himself (1735-1796), of which a French translation, 
with the title Monument de la Transmigration des Toiirgozcths des Bords 
de la Mer Caspiemie dans V Empire de la Chine, had been published in 
1776 by the French Jesuit missionaries of Pekin, in the first volume of 
their great collection of Meinoires concernant les Chinois. The account 
there given of so remarkable an event of recent Asiatic history as the 
migration from Russia to China of a whole population of Tartars had 
so much interested Gibbon that he refers to it in that chapter of his 
great work in which he describes the ancient Scythians. De Quincey 
had fastened on the same document as supplying him with an admirable 
theme for literary treatment. Explaining this some time ago, while 
editing his Revolt of the Tartars for a set of Selections from his Writ- 
ings, I had to add that there was much in the paper which he could not 
have derived from that original, and that, therefore, unless he invented 
a great deal, he must have had other authorities at hand. I failed at 
the time to discover what these other authorities were, — De Quincey 
having had a habit of secretiveness in such matters ; but since then an 
incidental reference of his own, in his Homer and the Homeridcc} has 
given me the clue. The author from whom he chiefly drew such of his 
materials as were not supplied by the French edition of Kien Eong's 
narrative, was, it appears from that reference, the German traveller, 
Benjamin Bergmann, whose Nomadtsche Streifereien tatter den Kalmiiken 
in de?i Jahren 1802 nnd i8oj came forth from a Riga press, in four 
parts or volumes, in 1804-1805. The book consists of a series of letters 

1 " Some years ago I published a paper on the Flight of the Kalmuck Tartars from 
Russia. Bergmann, the German from whom that account was chiefly drawn, resided 
a long time among the Kalmucks,'' etc. — Essay on Homer and the Homer idee. 



68 NOTES. 

written by Bergmann from different places during his residence among 
the Tartars, with interjected essays or dissertations of an independent 
kind on subjects relating to the Tartars, — one of these occupying io6 
pages, and entitled Versuch zur Geschichte der ^Kalmukenjiucht von der 
Wolga (" Essay on the History of the Flight of the Kalmucks from the 
Volga"). A French translation of the Letters, with this particular 
Essay included, appeared in 1825 under the title Voyage de Benjamin 
Bergtnami chez les Kalmiiks : Traduit de VAllemand par M. Moris, 
Menibre de la Societe Asiatique. Both works are now very scarce ; but 
having seen copies of both (the only copies, I think, in Edinburgh, and 
possibly the very copies which De Quincey used), I have no doubt left 
that it was Bergmann's Essay of 1804 that supplied De Quincey with 
the facts, names, and hints he needed for filling up that outline-sketch 
of the history of the Tartar Transmigration of 1771 which was already 
accessible for him in the Narrative of the Chinese Emperor, Kien Long, 
and in other Chinese State Papers, as these had been published in trans- 
lation, in 1776, by the French Jesuit missionaries. At the same time, 
no doubt is left that he passed the composite material freely and boldly 
through his own imagination, on the principle that here was a theme of 
such unusual literary capabilities that it was a pity it should be left in 
the pages of ordinary historiographic summary or record, inasmuch as 
it would be most effectively treated, even for the purpose of real his- 
tory, if thrown into the form of an epic or romance. Accordingly he 
takes liberties with his authorities, deviating from them now and then, 
and even once or twice introducing incidents not reconcilable with 
either of them, if not irreconcilable also with historical and geographi- 
cal possibility. Hence one may doubt sometimes whether what one is 
reading is to be regarded as history or as invention. On this point I 
can but repeat words I have already used : as it is, we are bound to be 
thankful. In quest of a literary theme, De Quincey was arrested some- 
how by that extraordinary transmigration of a Kalmuck horde across 
the face of Asia in 177 1, which had also struck Gibbon; he inserted 
his hands into the vague chaos of Asiatic inconceivability enshrouding 
the transaction ; and he tore out the connected and tolerably conceivable 
story which we now read. There is no such vivid version of any such 
historical episode in all Gibbon, and possibly nothing truer essentially, 
after all, to the substance of the facts as they actually happened." 

Professor Masson's Appended Editorial Note on the Chinese 
Accounts of the Migration (Vol. VII, pp. 422-6) : 

" As has been mentioned in the Preface, these appeared, in translated 
form, in 1776, in Vol. I of the great collection of Menioires concei-nant 



NOTES. 69 

les Chinois, published at Paris by the enterprise of the French Jesuit 
missionaries at Pekin. The most important of them, under the title 
Monument de la Transmigration des Tourgouths des Bords de la Mer 
Caspienne dans V Evipire de la Chine, occupies twenty-seven pages of 
the volume, and purports to be a translation of a Chinese document 
drawn up by the Emperor Kien Long himself. This Emperor, described 
by the missionaries as 'the best-lettered man in his Empire,' had 
special reasons for so commemorating, as one of the most interesting 
events of his reign, the sudden self-transference in 177 1 of so large a 
Tartar horde from the Russian allegiance to his own. Much of the 
previous part of his reign had been spent in that work of conquering 
and consolidating the Tartar appendages of his Empire which had been 
begun by his celebrated grandfather, the Emperor Kang Hi (1661-1721) ; 
and it so chanced that the particular Tartar horde which now, in 1771, 
had marched all the way from the shores of the Caspian to appeal to 
him for protection and for annexation to the Chinese Empire were but 
the posterity of a horde who had formeriy belonged to that Empire, but 
had detached themselves from it, in the reign of Kang Hi, by a contrary 
march westward to annex themselves to the Russian dominions. The 
event of 177 1, therefore, was gratifying to Kien Long as completing his 
independent exertions among the Tartars on the fringes of China by 
the voluntary re-settlement within those fringes, and return to the 
Chinese allegiance, of a whole Tartar population which had been astray, 
and under unfit and alien rule, for several generations. With this 
explanation the following sentences from Kien Long's Memoir, con- 
taining all its historical substance, will be fully intelligible : 

" ' All those who at present compose the nation of the Torgouths, 
unaffrighted by the dangers of a long and painful march, and full of the 
single desire of procuring themselves for the future a better mode of 
life and a more happy lot, have abandoned the parts which they inhab- 
ited far beyond our frontiers, have traversed with a courage proof 
against all difficulties a space of more than ten thousand lys, and are 
come to range themselves in the number of my subjects. Their sub- 
mission, in my view of it, is not a submission to which they have been 
inspired by fear, but is a voluntary and free submission, if ever there 
was one. . . . The Torgouths are one of the branches of the Eleuths. 
Four different branches of people formed at one time the whole nation 
of the Tchong-kar. It would be difficult to explain their common 
origin, respecting which indeed there is no very certain knowledge. 
These four branches separated from each other, so that each became a 
nation apart. That of the Eleuths, the chief of them all, gradually 



70 NOTES. 

subdued the others, and continued till the time of Kang Hi to exercise 
this usurped pre-eminence over them. Tse-ouang-raptan then reigned 
over the Eleuths, and Ayouki over the Torgouths. These two chiefs, 
being on bad terms with each other, had their mutual contests ; of which 
Ayouki, who was the weaker, feared that in the end he would be the 
unhappy victim. He formed the project of withdrawing himself forever 
from the domination of the Eleuths. He took secret measures for 
securing the flight which he meditated, and sought safety, with all his 
people, in the territories which are under the dominion of the Russians. 
These permitted them to establish themselves in the country c<f Etchil 
[the country between the Volga and the Jaik, a little to the north of 
the Caspian Sea]. . . . Oubache, the present Khan of the Torgouths, 
is the youngest grandson of Ayouki. The Russians never ceasing to 
require him to furnish soldiers for incorporation into their armies, and 
having at last carried off his own son to serve them as a hostage, and 
being besides of a religion different from his, and paying no respect to 
that of the Lamas, which the Torgouths profess, Oubache and his 
people at last determined to shake off a yoke which was becoming daily 
more and more insupportable. After having secretly deliberated among 
themselves, they concluded that they must abandon a residence where 
they had so much to suffer, in order to come and live more at ease in 
those parts of the dominion of China where the religion professed is 
that of Fo. At the commencement of the eleventh month of last year 
[December, 1770] they took the road, with their wives, their children, 
and all their baggage, traversed the country of the Hasaks [Cossacks], 
skirted Lake Palkache-nor and the adjacent deserts; and, about the 
end of the sixth month of this year [in August, 177 1], after havhig 
passed over more than ten thousand lys during the space of the eight 
whole months of their journey, they arrived at last on the frontiers of 
Charapen, not far from the borders of Ily. I knew already that the 
Torgouths were on the march to come and make submission to me. 
The news was brought me not long after their departure from Etchil. 
I then reflected that, as Tleton, general of the troops that are at Ily, 
was already charged with other very important affairs, it was to be 
feared that he would not be able to regulate with all the requisite atten- 
tion those which concerned these new refugees. Chouhede, one of the 
councillors of the general, was at Ouche, charged with keeping order 
among the Mahometans there. As he found it within his power to 
give his attention to the Torgouths, I ordered him to repair to Ily and 
do his best for their solid settlement. ... At the same time I did not 
neglect any of the precautions that seemed to me necessary. I ordered 



NOTES. 71 

Chouhede to raise small forts and redoubts at the most important 
points, and to cause all the passes to be carefully guarded; and I 
enjoined on him the duty of himself getting ready the necessary pro- 
visions of every kind inside these defences. . . . The Torgouths 
arrived, and on arriving found lodgings ready, means of sustenance, and 
all the conveniences they could have found in their own proper dwell- 
ings. This is not all. Those principal men among them who had to 
come personally to do me homage had their expenses paid, and were 
honorably conducted, by the imperial post-road, to the place where I 
then was. I saw them ; I spoke to them ; I invited them to partake 
with me in the pleasures of the chase ; and, at the end of the number 
of days appointed for this exercise, they attended me in my retinue as 
far as to Ge-hol. There I gave them a ceremonial banquet and made 
them the customary presents. ... It was at this Ge-hol, in those 
charming parts where Kang Hi, my grandfather, made himself an abode 
to which he could retire during the hot season, at the same time that 
he thus put himself in a situation to be able to watch with greater care 
over the welfare of the peoples that are beyond the western frontiers of 
the Empire ; it was, I say, in those lovely parts that, after having con- 
quered the whole country of the Eleuths, I had received the sincere 
homages of Tchering and his Tourbeths, who alone among the Eleuths 
had remained faithful to me. One has not to go many years back to 
touch the epoch of that transaction. The remembrance of it is yet 
recent. And now— who could have predicted it.? — when there was 
the least possible room for expecting such a thing, and when I had 
no thought of it, that one of the branches of the Eleuths which first 
separated itself from the trunk, those Torgouths who had voluntarily 
expatriated themselves to go and live under a foreign and distant 
dominion, these same Torgouths are come of themselves to submit 
to me of their own good will; and it happens that it is still at Ge-hol, 
not far from the venerable spot where my grandfather's ashes repose, 
that I have the opportunity, which I never sought, of admitting them 
solemnly into the number of my subjects.' 

" Annexed to this general memoir there were some notes, also by the 
Emperor, one of them being that description of the sufferings of the 
Torgouths on their march, and of the miserable condition in which they 
arrived at the Chinese frontier, which De Quincey has quoted at p. 417. 
Annexed to the Memoir there is also a letter from P. Amiot, one 
of the French Jesuit missionaries, dated ' Pe-king, 15th October, 1773,' 
containing a comment on the memoir of a certain Chinese scholar and 
mandarin, Yu-min-tchoung, who had been charged by the Emperor with 



72 NOTES. 

the task of seeing the narrative properly preserved in four languages in 
a monumental form. It is from this Chinese comment on the Imperial 
Memoir that there is the extract at p. 418 as to the miserable con- 
dition of the fugitives. 

" On a comparison of De Quincey's splendid paper with the Chinese 
documents, several discrepancies present themselves ; the most impor- 
tant of which perhaps are these : — (i) In De Quincey's paper it is Kien 
Long himself who first descries the approach of the vast Kalmuck 
horde to the frontiers of his dominions. On a fine morning in the 
early autumn of 177 1, we are told, being then on a hunting expedition 
in the soHtary Tartar wilds on the outside of the great Chinese Wall, 
and standing by chance at an opening of his pavilion to enjoy the 
morning sunshine, he sees the huge sheet of mist on the horizon, which, 
as it rolls nearer and nearer, and its features become more definite, 
reveals camels, and horses, and human beings in myriads, and announces 
the advent of, etc. etc. ! In Kien Long's own narrative he is not there 
at all, having expected indeed the arrival of the Kalmuck host, but 
having deputed the military and commissariat arrangements for the 
reception of them to his trusted officer, Chouhede; and his first sight 
of any of them is when their chiefs are brought to him, by the imperial 
post-road, to his quarters a good way off, where they are honorably 
entertained, and whence they accompany him to his summer residence 
of Ge-hol. (2) De Quincey's closing account of the monument in 
memory of the Tartar transmigration which Kien Long caused to be 
erected, and his copy of the fine inscription on the monument, are not 
in accord with the Chinese statements respecting that matter. ' Mighty 
columns of granite and brass erected by the Emperor Kien Long near 
the banks of the Ily' is De Quincey's description of the monument. 
The account given of the affair by the mandarin Yu-min-tchoung, in his 
comment on the Emperor's Memoir, is very different. ' The year of 
the arrival of the Torgouths,' he says, ' chanced to be precisely that in 
which the Emperor was celebrating the eightieth year of the age of 
his mother the Empress-Dowager. In memory of this happy day 
his Majesty had built on the mountain which shelters from the heat 
(Pi-chou-chan) a vast and magnificent miao, in honor of the reunion of 
all the followers of Fo in one and the same worship ; it had just been 
completed when Oubache and the other princes of his nation arrived at 
Ge-hol. In memory of an event which has contributed to make this 
same year forever famous in our annals, it has been his Majesty's will 
to erect in the same miao a monument which should fix the epoch of the 
event and attest its authenticity ; he himself composed the words for 



NOTES. 73 

the monument and wrote the characters with his own hand. How 
small the number of persons that will have an opportunity of seeing 
and reading this monument within the walls of the temple in which it 
is erected ! ' Moreover the words of the monumental inscription in 
De Quincey's copy of it are hardly what Kien Long would have written 
or could have authorized. ' Wandering sheep who have strayed away 
from the Celestial Empire in the year 1616' is the expression in De 
Quincey's copy for that original secession of the Torgoutli Tartars from 
their eastern home on the Chinese borders for transference of them- 
selves far west to Russia, which was repaired and compensated by their 
return in 177 1 under their Khan Oubache. As distinctly, on the other 
hand, the memoir of Kien Long refers the date of the original secession 
to no farther back than the reign of his own grandfather, the Emperor 
Kang Hi, when Ayouki, the grandfather of Oubache, was Khan of the 
Torgouths, and induced them to part company with their overbearing 
kinsmen the Eleuths, and seek refuge within the Russian territories on 
the Volga. In the comment of the Chinese mandarin on the Imperial 
Memoir the time is more exactly indicated by the statement that the 
Torgouths had remained ' more than seventy years ' in their Russian 
settlements when Oubache brought them back. This would refer us to 
about 1700, or, at farthest, to between 1690 and 1700, for the secession 
under Ayouki. 

" The discrepancies are partly explained by the fact that De Quincey 
followed Bergmann's account, — which account differs avowedly in 
some particulars from that of the Chinese memoirs. In Bergmann I 
find the original secession of the ancestors of Oubache's Kalmuck 
horde from China to Russia is pushed back to 161 6, just as in De 
Quincey. But, though De Quincey keeps by Bergmann when he 
pleases, he takes liberties with Bergmann too, intensifies Bergmann's 
story throughout, and adds much to it for w^hich there is little or no 
suggestion in Bergmann. For example, the incident which De Quincey 
introduces with such terrific effect as the closing catastrophe of the 
march of the fugitive Kalmucks before their arrival on the Chinese 
frontier, — the incident of their thirst-maddened rush into the waters of 
Lake Tengis, and their wallow there in bloody struggle with their 
Bashkir pursuers, — has no basis in Bergmann larger than a few slight 
and rather matter-of-fact sentences. As Bergmann himself refers here 
and there in his narrative to previous books, German or Russian, for 
his authorities, it is just possible that De Quincey may have called some 
of these to his aid for any intensification or expansion of Bergmann 
he thought necessary. My impression, however, is that he did nothing 



74 NOTES. 

of the sort, but deputed any necessary increment of his Bergmann 
materials to his own lively imagination." 

1 1. The first three paragraphs of the essay, comprising the formal 
introduction, are intentionally rather more picturesque and vivacious in 
style than the ordinary narrative that follows. If these paragraphs be 
read consecutively aloud, the student will surely feel the sweep and 
power of De Quincey's eloquence. Attention may well be directed to 
the author's own apparent interest in his subject because of its appeal 
to the imagination (p. i, 1. 4), of the roma7ttic circtwi stances (p. i, 1. 11), 
of its dramatic capabilities (p. 2,1. 8), of its scenical situations (p. 3, 1. 8). 
Throughout the essay effort should be made to excite appreciation of 
the significance of words, and De Quincey's mastery in the use of words 
may be continually illustrated. In paragraph i, note the fitness of the 
word velocity (1. 12) and the appropriateness of the epithets in almighty 
instincts (1. 17), life-withering marches (1. iS), gloomy vengeance (1. 19), 
volleying thunders (p. 2, 1. i). 

1 5. Tartar. Originally applied to certain tribes in Chinese Tartary, 
but here used for Mongolian. Look up etymology and trace relation 
of the word to Turk. — steppes. A Russian word indicating large 
areas more or less level and devoid of forests ; these regions are often 
similar in character to the American prairie, and are used for pasturage. 

1 6, 7. terminus a quo, terminus ad quem. The use of phrases quoted 
from classic sources is frequent in De Quincey's writings. Note such 
phrases as they occur, also foreign words. Is their use to be justified ? 

1 18. leeming. The lemming, or leming. A rodent quadruped. 
" It is very prolific, and vast hordes periodically migrate down to the 
sea, destroying much vegetation in their path." — Century Dictionary. 

1 22. Miltonic images. " Miltonic " here characterizes not only 
images used by Milton, but images suggestive of his as well. Yet 

compare : 

Or from above 
Should intermitted vengeance arm again 
His red right hand to plague us ? 

— Paradise Lost, II, 172-4. 
Or, with solitary hand 
Reaching beyond all limit, at one blow 
Unaided could have finished thee. 

— Paradise Lost, VI, 139-41- 

2 12. sanctions. The word here means not permission, nor recog- 
nition merely, but the avowal of something as sacred, hence obligatory ; 
a thing ordained. 



MOTES. 75 

2 13, 14. a triple character. De Quincey is fond of thus analyzing 
the facts he has to state. Notice how this method of statement, 
marked by " ist," " 2dly," "3dly," contributes to the clearness of the 
paragraph. 

2 17. " Venice Preserved." A tragedy by Thomas Otway, one of 
the Elizabethan dramatists (1682). — **Fiesco." A tragedy by the 
great German dramatist Friedrich Schiller (1783), the full title of which 
is TAe Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa. 

2 22. Cambyses, the Third (529-522 e.g.). He was king of Persia 
and led an expedition into Ethiopia, which ended disastrously for 
him. 

2 23. anabasis. The word itself means *'a march up" into the 
interior. — katabasis (1. 28) means "a march down," — in this case 
the retreat of the Greeks. The Anabasis of the Greek historian Xeno- 
phon is the account of the expedition of Cyrus the Younger against 
Artaxerxes, which ended with the death of Cyrus at the battle of Cunaxa 
(401 B.C.). 

2 25. Crassus. A Roman general who led an army into Parthia 
(or Persia) (54 b.c). He was defeated and put to death by torture.— 
Julian (1. 26), the Apostate, lost his life while invading Persia {-^^1^ a.d.). 

2 28. the Russian anabasis, etc. The historic invasion of Russia 
by the armies of Napoleon in 1812, followed by the terrible retreat from 
Moscow. 

3 3. This triple character, etc. Note this method of making clear 
the connection between paragraphs. Make close study of these para- 
graphs ; analyze their structure. Compare the manner of introducing 
subsequent paragraphs. 

3 14. Wolga. The German spelling. The Volga is the longest 
river in Europe. It is difficult to locate with certainty all the points 
here mentioned. 

3 16. Koulagina was a fort somewhere on the Ural river; perhaps 
to be identified with Kulaschinskaja, or Kologinskaia. 

3 17. Cossacks. A people of mixed origin, but of Russian rather 
than Tartar stock. There are two branches, the Ukraine and the Don 
Cossacks. This people is first heard of in the tenth century. The title 
of the leader was Hettnan ; the office was elective and the government 
was democratic. The Cossacks have been noted always as fierce 
fighters and are valuable subjects of the czar. The Bashkirs (1. 18) are 
Mongolians and nomadic in their habits. 

3 18. Ouchim was evidently a mountain pass in the Ural range 
(compare p. 37, 1. 18). 



76 NOTES. 

3 19. Torgau, spelled also Torgai by De Quincey, though elsewhere 
Turgai, indicates a district east of the Ural mountains ; it is also the 
name of the principal city of that district. 

3 20. Khan. A Tartar title meaning chief or governor. 

3 22. Lake of Tengis. Lake Balkash is meant. Compare p. 56, 
1. 18, and note thereon. 

3 23. Zebek-Dorchi. One of the principal characters in the follow- 
ing narrative. 

3 32. Kalmucks. A branch of the Mongolian family of peoples, 
divided into four tribes, and dwelling in the Chinese Empire, western 
Siberia, and southeastern Russia. They were nomads, adherents of a 
form of Buddhism, and number over 200,000. — Century Cyclopedia of 
Names. 

4 12. exasperated. As an illustration of the discriminating use of 
words, explain the difference in meaning of exasperated and irritated 
(1. 19) ; also point out the fitness of the word inflated in the phrase 

(1- 13)- 

5 23. rival, '^h.y '^ almost a competitor".? What is the meaning 
of each word ? 

5 32. odius. Is there any gain in force by adding repulsive? 

6 5. Machiavelian. Destitute of political morality. A term derived 
from the name of Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian statesman and writer 
(1469-1527), who, in a treatise on government entitled "The Prince," 
advocated, or was interpreted to advocate, the disregard of moral prin- 
ciple in the maintenance of authority. In this sentence discriminate 
between the apparent synonyms dissimulation, hypocrisy, perfidy. 

6 15. Elizabeth Petrowna. Daughter of Peter the Great and 
Catharine I. Empress of Russia 1741-1762. 

6 28. Tcherkask. An important city of the Cossacks, near the 
mouth of the Don. — tents. A common method of counting families 
among nomads. What figure of speech does this illustrate? 

7 25. roubles. A rouble is the Russian unit of value, worth seventy- 
seven cents. The word is etymologically connected with the Indian rupee. 

7 28. Thus far, etc. Notice the care with which De Quincey 
analyzes the situation. 

8 19. mercenary. Look up origin of the word. How is it appro- 
priate here.-* 

829. romantic. What are the qualities indicated by this adjective.? 
How did the word, derived from Roman, get its present significance ? 

8 34. A triple vengeance. Compare with the similar analysis 
p. 2, 1. 13. 



NOTES. 77 

9 11. behemoth. A Hebrew word meaning "great beast." It was 
used probably of the hippopotamus. wSee Job, xl, 1 5-24. In the work 
by Bergmann, which furnished De Quincey with much of his material, 
the figure used is that of a giant and a dwarf. — Muscovy. An old 
name of Russia, derived from Moscow. 

9 13. ** lion ramp." Quoted from Milton : 

The bold Ascalonite 
Fled from his lion ramp. 

— Samson Agonisies, 139. 

'•'■ Baptized a7id infidel '''' 2in6. " baj- baric East" dixe also borrowings from 
Milton. 

9 16. unnumbered numbers. Notice how effectively in this and the 
following sentences De Quincey utilizes suggested words: inojistrous, 
monstrosity ; hopelessness, hope. 

9 22. fable. Here used for plot; the idea being that the story of 
the Revolt has all the compactness and unity of design to be found in 
the plot of a classic tragedy, which could admit the introduction of no 
external incidents or episodes to confuse the thread of the main 
action. 

10 8. translation. Note the etymology of this word, which is here 
used in its literal sense. 

10 17. But what, etc. See with what art, as w^ell as with what 
evident interest, De Quincey catches the very spirit of the plot. How 
does the interrogation add strength ? 

10 25, 26. Kien Long, " Emperor of China from 1735 to ^79^^ was 
the fourth Chinese emperor of the Mantchoo-Tartar dynasty, and a man 
of the highest reputation for ability and accomplishment." — Masson. 

10 28. religion. Lamaism. " A corrupted form of Buddhism pre- 
vailing in Tibet and Mongolia, which combines the ethical and meta- 
physical ideas of Buddhism with an organized hierarchy under two 
semi-political sovereign pontiffs, an elaborate ritual, and the worship of 
a host of deities and saints." — Century Dictionaiy. 

10 29. Chinese Wall. This famous wall was built for defence 
against the northern Mongols in the third century. It is 1400 miles in 
length and of varying height. In what sense is the phrase used 
figuratively ? 

11 17. ^ great Lama. " Lama, a celibate priest or ecclesiastic belong- 
ing to that variety of Buddhism known as Lamaism. There are several 
grades of lamas, both male and female. The dalai-lama and the tesho- 
or bogdo-lama are regarded as supreme pontiffs. They are of equal 



78 NOTES. 

authority in their respective territories, but the former is much the more 
important, and is known to Europeans as the Grand Lama." — Century 
Dictionary. 

The Dalai-Lama (p. 12, 1. 11) resides at Lassa in Tibet. 

12 34. With respect to the month. Notice the extreme care with 
which the author develops the following details, and the touch of sym- 
pathy with which this paragraph closes. 

13 28. war raged. "The war was begun in 1768 when Mustapha 
III. was Sultan of Turkey ; audit was continued till 1774." — Masson. 

13 33. Human experience, etc. It is a favorite device of this writer 
to develop a concrete fact into an abstraction of general application. 
Do you believe that this is true ? Can you give any illustration ? 

15 1. a pitched battle. " It will be difficult, I think, to find record, 
in the history of the Russo-Turkish war of 1768, of any battle answering 
to this." — Masson. 

15 10. Paladins. A term used especially to designate the famous 
knightly champions who served the Prankish Charlemagne. Look up 
the etymology of the word and trace its present meaning. 

15 24. ukase. " An edict or order, legislative or administrative, 
emanating from the Russian government." — Century Dictionary. 

16 9. mummeries. Find the original meaning of this word. 

16 29. Catharine II. "Elizabeth had been succeeded in 1762 by 
her nephew Peter III., who had reigned but a few months when he was 
dethroned by a conspiracy of Russian nobles headed by his German 
wife Catharine. She became Empress in his stead, and reigned from 
1762 to 1796 as Catharine II." — Masson. 

17 10. doubtful suspicion and indirect presumption. Note the 
additional force given to the nouns by the adjectives. 

17 18. Weseloff. This gentleman is referred to again at more length 
in pages 45-5°- 

17 31. sanctions. Compare the note on p. 2,1. 12. The sense in 
which the word is used justifies the use of violate in the next line. 

18 24. first of all. Again see how, by use of this phrase, followed 
later by secojidly, thirdly, etc., De Quincey gains greater clearness for 
his various points. 

19 29. But the time, etc. Here is the first general division point in 
the main narrative. The genesis of the plot has been described ; now 
follow the active preliminaries to the flight. 

19 33. one vast conflagration. Compare the account, p. 25. 

20 12, 13. But where or how, etc. Note again the effective use of 
interrogation. How does it stimulate interest .'* 



NOTES. 79 

20 17. Kirghises. The spelling Kirghiz is more familiar. Like the 
Bashkirs, nomads of the Mongolian-Tartar race, perhaps the least 
civilized of those inhabiting the steppes. 

20 26. rhetoric. In what sense used here .? Is this use correct .? 

21 5. Sarepta. Locate this town ; it is on a small river that empties 
into the Volga. " The point of the reference to this particular town is 
that it was a colony of industrious Germans, having been founded in 
1764 or 1765 by the Moravian Brothers." — Baldwin. 

22 11. Temba. The Jemba. 

22 28- Kichinskoi. Notice the vividness of the character portrait 
that follows ; compare it with the portraitures of Zebek and Oubacha 
previously given. 

23 1. surveillant. Here used for watchman or spy. What deriva- 
tives have we from this French expression } 

23 34. Christmas arrived. Another division point in the analysis. 

24 5. Astrachan. Also spelled Astrakhan. The name of a large 
and somewhat barren district comprising more than 90,000 square miles 
of territory in southeastern Europe ; its capital city, having the same 
name, is situated on the Volga near its mouth. 

24 26. at the rate of 300 miles a day. By no means an incredible 
speed ; in Russia such sledge flights are not uncommon. Compare 
what De Quincey has to say of the glory of motion in The English 
Mail-Coach, — " running at the least twelve miles an hour." 

25 26. malignant counsels. What is the full effect of this epithet ? 

26 10. valedictory vengeance. Note again the force of the 
epithet. 

26 28. aggravate. W^hat is the literal significance of this word .-^ 
As synonymous with what words is it often incorrectly used ? 

28 11. For now began to unroll. Does this paragraph constitute 
a digression, or is it a useful amplification of the narrative ? Does 
De Quincey exaggerate when he terms these experiences of the Tartars 
*' the most awful series of calamities anywhere recorded " ? 

28 14. sudden inroads. " The inroads of the Huns into Europe 
extended from the third century into the fifth ; those of the Avars from 
the sixth century to the eighth or ninth ; the first great conquests of the 
Mongol Tartars were by Genghis-Khan, the founder of a Mongol 
empire which stretched, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, from 
China to Poland." — Masson. 

28 18. volleying lightning. Compare p. 2, 1. i, where De Quincey 
uses a somewhat similar phrase. Why is the phrase varied, do you 
suppose ? 



80 NOTES. 

28 21. the French retreat. It would be interesting to compare the 
incidents and figures of this retreat, as furnished by biographers and 
historians. Sloane's Life of Napoleon is a recent authority. 

28 26. vials of v/rath. Compare Revelation, xv, 7, and xvi, i. If 
De Quincey had used the Revised Version he would have written bowls 
instead of vials. Such borrowings of phrase or incident are called 
" allusions." Make a list of the scriptural allusions found in the essay, 
— of those suggested by Milton. 

•29 16. Earthquakes. " De Quincey here refers to such destructive 
shocks as that which occurred at Sparta, 464 B.C., in which, according 
to Thirlwall, 20,000 persons perished ; that which Gibbon speaks of 
during the reign of Valentinian, 365 a.d., in which 50,000 persons lost 
their lives at Alexandria alone ; that in the reign of Justinian, 526 a.d., 
in which 250,000 persons were crushed by falling walls ; others in 
Jamaica, 1692 a.d. ; at Lisbon, 1755 A.D., with loss of 30,000 lives ; and 
in Venezuela, 181 2 a.d., when Caraccas was destroyed, and 20,000 souls 
perished." — Wauchope. 

29 20. pestilence. Described by Thucydides; see also Grote's 
History of Greece, Chap. XLIX. Of the great plague of London (1665) 
the most realistic description is Tieioe's Journal of the Plague Year. 

29 28. The siege of Jerusalem. Read Josephus, The Jewish JVar, 
Bks. V and VI. 

29 31. exasperation. Compare note on p. 26, 1. 28. 

30 3, 4. even of maternal love. The reference is to an incident 
mentioned by Josephus {The Jewish War, Bk. VI, Chap. Ill), in which 
a mother is described as driven by the stress of famine to kill and 
devour her own child. 

30 5. romantic misery. How romantic? Compare this phrase 
with similar uses of the word romantic. 
30 10. River Jaik. The Ural. 

30 33. scenical propriety. Compare the statement with similar 
ones made by the author elsewhere. 

31 11. decrement. Compare with its positive correspondent, ijtcre- 
ment. 

31 20. acharnement. Fury. 

31 26. The first stage, etc. A time mark in the essay. 

32 10. liable. Another instance of a word often misused, correctly 
employed in the text. Compare note on aggravate, p. 26, 1. 28. 

32 23. Bactrian camels. There are two species of camel, the drome- 
dary, single humped, and the Bactrian, with two humps. The former 
is native to Arabia, the latter to central Asia. The dromedary is the 



NOTES. 81 

swifter of the two. Bactria is the ancient name of that district now 
called Balkh, in Afghanistan. 

ZZ 7. evasion. Compare with its positive correspondent invasioji ; 
compare decrement, p. 31, 1. 11. 

34 8. champaign savannas. Both words mean about the same, an 
open, treeless country, nearly level. What is the linguistic source of 
both words .'' 

37 19. hills of Moulgaldchares. Spurs of the Urals running south- 
west. 

38 10. Polish dragoons. "The adjective refers not to the nation- 
aUty, but to the equipment of the cavalry. Thus there was at one time 
in the French army a corps called Chasseurs d'Afriqiie, and in both the 
French and that of the Northern troops in our own Civil War a corps 
of Zouaves. Similarly at p. 53, 1. 24, De Quincey speaks of yagers 
among the Chinese troops. Perhaps both Polish dragoon and yager 
were well-known military terms in 1837. At any rate there is no gain 
in scrutinizing them too closely, since the context in both cases seems 
to be pure invention." — Baldwin. 

38 11. cuirassiers. From the French. Soldiers protected by a 
cuirass, or breastplate, and mounted. 

38 20. River Igritch. The Irgiz-koom. 

39 21. concurrently. Etymology.? 

39 33. sad solitudes, etc. Notice this as one of the points in a very 
effective paragraph. 

40 3. aggravations. Compare note on p. 26, 1. 28. 

40 5. howling wilderness. Why so called.? Compare with a 
previous use of the same expression (p. 12, 1. 5). 

40 18. spectacle. Compare with other references to the theatrical 
quality of the Flight. 

40 21. myriads. Is this literal ? Notice the contrast in tone 
between this sentence and those which close the paragraph. 

41 12. adust. " Latin, adustus, burned. Looking as if burned or 
scorched." — Century Dictionary. 

41 15. erected their speaking eyes. Study this expression until its 
forcefulness is felt. The camel is notorious for its unresponsive dull- 
ness; indeed its general apathy to its surroundings is all that accounts 
for its apparent docility. De Quincey, therefore, is speaking by the 
book when he describes these brutes as " without the affections or 
sensibilities of flesh and blood." Their very submissiveness is due to 
their stupidity. 

41 20. those of Xerxes. See Grote's History of Greece, Chap. 
XXXVIII. 



82 NOTES. 

41 29. untread. A dictionary word, but uncommon. Recall similar 
words used by De Quincey which add picturesqueness in part because 
of their novelty. 

41 31. their old allegiance. i6i6. See the close of this paragraph. 

41 32. scapegoat. Leviticus, x\\, j-io; 20-22. 

42 32, 33. land of promise . . . house, etc. Deuteronotiiy, viii, 14; 
ix, 28. 

43 8. Orsk. Upon the river Or. 
43 9. Oriembourg. A fort. 

43 23. sinister. Etymology.? 

43 29. transpiring. Like aggravate and liable, a word often mis- 
used. What does it mean "i 

44 10. were dispersed. Note the variety of phrases in the following 
ten lines used to indicate separation. 

46 16. Hetman. Chief. Compare Germ. Haiiptmann, Eng. captain, 
Fr. chef. 

47 1. evasion. See previous note on p. 33, 1. 7. 

48 2. carabines. Old-fashioned spelling. Short rifles adapted to 
the use of mounted troops. 

49 13. without a parallel. As has been seen, De Quincey is fond 
of superlative statements. A writer may or may not be true in his 
claims ; the habitual assumption, however, predisposes his reader to 
doubt his judgment. 

49 16. Desultors. This word is not in common use, but desultory 
is. Look up the derivation and note the metaphor concealed in the 
latter word. 

49 19. at the rate of 200 miles. Compare preceding note on 
p. 24, 1. 26. 

50 27. " more fell," etc. From the last speech in Shakespeare's 
Othello, addressed to lago : 

O Spartan dog, 
More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea ! 
Look on the tragic loading of this bed ; 
This is thy work. 

5117. "fierce varieties." Misquoted. '$>&% Paradise Lost, \\, ^^<^\ 
VII, 272. 

51 19. post equitem, etc. : 

Behind the horseman sits black care. 

— Horace's Odes, III, i, 40, 

51 20. undying worm. Isaiah, Ixvi, 24. 



NOTES. 83 

51 29. ** from morn till dewy eve." Paradise Lost, I, 742. 

52 32. On a fine morning. Study this paragraph carefully with 
reference to the rhetorical effect. The entire scene is the product of 
De Quincey's imagination; do you consider it truthful ? 

53 24. yagers. German Jdger ; used of a huntsman or a forester, 
also in parts of Germany and Austria used to indicate light infantry or 
cavalry. Compare with Polish dragoons, p. 38, 1. 10. 

54 21. indorsed. Look up the etymology. Has De Quincey, in 
his note, quoted Milton accurately? See Paradise Regaijted, III, 329. 

56 ]3. rather in a diagonal. This is another characteristic of 
De Quincey ; he is sometimes tediously exact in his details ; perhaps the 
minuteness is justifiable in this instance, as the statement increases the 
realistic effect of an imaginary scene. 

56 18. a large fresh-water lake. The Lake of Tengis here referred 
to, mentioned by name in the paragraph following this, is evidently 
Lake Balkash, into which flows the river Ily. It is one of the largest 
lakes in the steppes, but its water is really salt. 

59 21. globes and turms. Latinisms. Milton uses globe in Para- 
dise Lost, II, 512, and turms in Paradise Regained, IV, 66. 

60 4. retributary. What more common form is used synonymously ? 

60 21. *'La nation des Torgotes," etc. '"The nation of the Tor- 
gouths {to wit the Kalmucks) arrived at Ily wholly shattered, having 
neither victuals to live on \sic\ nor clothes to wear. I had foreseen 
this, and had given orders for making every kind of preparation neces- 
sary for their prompt relief; which was duly done. The distribution of 
lands was made ; and there was assigned to each family a portion suffi- 
cient to serve for its support, whether by cultivating it or by feeding 
cattle on it \sic\ There were given to each individual materials for his 
clothing, corn for his sustenance for the space of one year, utensils for 
household purposes, and other things necessary ; besides some ounces 
of silver wherewith to provide himself with anything that might have 
been forgotten. Particular places were marked out for them, fertile in 
pasture ; and cattle and sheep, etc., were given them, that they might 
be able for the future to work for their ow^n support and well-being.' — 
This is a note of Kien Long subjoined to his main narrative; and De 
Quincey, I find, took the above transcript of it from the French trans- 
lation of Bergmann's book. That transcript, it is worth observing, is 
not quite exact to the original French text of the Pekin missionaries." 
— Masson. 

61 12. ''Lorsqu'ils arriverent," etc. " ' When they arrived on our 
frontiers (to the number of some hundreds of thousands, although 



84 NOTES. 

nearly as many more had perished by the extreme fatigue, the hunger, 
the thirst, and all the other hardships inseparable from a very long and 
very toilsome march), they were reduced to the last misery, they were 
in want of everything. The Emperor supplied them with everything. 
He caused habitations to be prepared for them suitable for their manner 
of living; he caused food and clothing to be distributed among them; 
he had cattle and sheep given them, and implements to put them in a 
condition for forming herds and cultivating the earth ; and all this at 
his own proper charges, which mounted to immense sums, without 
counting the money which he gave to each head of a family to provide 
for the subsistence of his wife and children.' 

" This is from a eulogistic abstract of Kien Long's own narrative by one 
of his Chinese ministers, named Yu Min Tchoung, a translation of which 
was sent to Paris by the Jesuit missionary, P. Amiot, together with the 
translation of the imperial narrative itself. The transcript is again by 
the French translator of Bergmann, and is again rather inaccurate." — 
Masson. 

63 17. lex talionis. Law of retaliation. 

63 18. "Lex nee justior," etc. "Nor is there any law more just 
than that the devisers of murder should perish by their own device." — 
Ovid, Ars Amatoria, I, 655. 

63 25. lares. The minor deities of a Roman household. 

63 30. Arcadian beauty. Arcadian is synonymous with rural sim- 
plicity and beauty. Arcadia, the central province of Greece, was a 
pastoral district and lacked the vices — as well as some of the virtues — 
of the surrounding states. 

64 1. extirpation. Etymology? 

64 2.3. music. One who has listened to Mongolian attempts at 
harmony must suspect that De Quincey is again inspired by his imagi- 
nation when he characterizes this part of the commemoration as " rich 
and solemn." 

64 28. columns of granite and brass. This feature of the narrative, 
as well as many other details of apparent fact, including the entire 
inscription said to have been placed upon the monument, are evidently 
the pure invention of De Quincey's fancy, no mention of these details 
being found in his historical sources. 



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A uthor of ' ' The L ife, A rt, and Characters of Shakespeare^^ 
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